（Hong Kong，14 April 2025）

City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) has unveiled its programme for the 2025/26 season, with newly appointed Artistic Director Sang Jijia leading the creative vision both on stage and behind the scenes. Building on CCDC’s rich legacy, Sang ushers in a new era of expansive and diverse dance landscapes. Under the season theme Impetus, CCDC launches the Exquisite Brilliance series, connecting with international choreographers, and introduces a new rhythm of “local × global” through revamped editions of the City Contemporary Dance Festival and Jumping Frames – Hong Kong International Movement-image Festival. The season begins with Sang’s new creation Mr Blank 2.0, which reinvents the iconic figure through a new visual language and cast, prompting reflection on our hyper-digitalised world.

Mr Blank 2.0 will premiere at the Auditorium, Kwai Tsing Theatre, from 2 to 4 May 2025. Tickets are now available at URBTIX.

From Character to Choreography: Piecing Together a Personal Truth

Back in 2018, Sang Jijia was inspired by novelist Paul Auster’s character Mr. Blank, creating the original Mr. Blank, a work that invited audiences to observe dancers from above as they grappled with fragmented memories in a quest to protect a vanishing self. The work was restaged in 2020 amidst pandemic-induced uncertainties, and in 2021, it was reimagined as a dance-on-film project. Now, with Mr Blank 2.0, Sang repositions the character in a sealed chamber—an environment shaped by the omnipresence of big data and surveillance. Within this enclosed space, Mr. Blank is both an observer and the observed. Combining choreography with performative texts, music and video, the piece meditates once again on the act of piecing together and reclaiming a personal reality in a hyper-connected world.

A Sealed Stage with Hidden Cameras

Mr Blank 2.0 is set inside an enclosed chamber-like stage. Three sides of the stage are solid walls, while the side facing the audience is a glass wall, separating the dancers inside the chamber from the viewers outside. Audiences observe the dancers from beyond the walls, while hidden cameras placed throughout the stage capture every aspect of the space — each person, object, movement, expression, and glance. These recordings are projected onto the glass wall, offering a distinctive viewing experience that challenges the audience’s visual imagination through the language of the lens.

Veteran Creative Team × Emerging Cast of Dancers

The production brings together the original award-winning creative team. Celebrated playwright Janice Poon returns as dramaturg; stage design is crafted by Leo Cheung; music is composed by acclaimed collaborator Dickson Dee; with lighting and set design by Lawmanray, costume design by Cindy Ho, video design by Oliver Shing, and sound design by Anthony Yeung. The experienced production team joins hands with a new generation of CCDC dancers, alongside returning alumni Kaki Lee, Li De, and Natalie Mak, and Resident Artist Qiao Yang, to deliver an immersive experience that resonates visually, sonically, and emotionally.

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Performance Details

The presenter reserves the right to change the programme, artists as well as seating arrangements and audience capacities should unavoidable circumstances make it necessary.

Creative and Performance Team

^With support and kind permission of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts

*Guest Performer

Choreography

Sang Jijia

Sang Jijia received the Asian Cultural Council Scholarship to study in the US. In 2002, he was selected by the ‘Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative’ to study choreography under William Forsythe in Germany. During his time in Germany, he joined the Ballet Frankfurt and Forsythe Company as Assistant Choreographer and Dancer, respectively. He returned to China in 2006 and has since choreographed for CCDC, BeijingDance/LDTX and Guangdong Modern Dance Company. He has also been commissioned by renowned dance companies around the world, including Ballet Frankfurt (Germany), Spellbound Contemporary Ballet (Italy), Carte Blanche (Norway) and GöteborgsOperans Danskompani (Sweden). He was appointed as the Resident Choreographer for CCDC from 2015 to 2024. In 2023, he was awarded the Honorary Fellowship by the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. In 2024, he was presented ‘Distinguished Achievement Awards’ by the 25th Hong Kong Dance Awards and ‘Artist of the Year (Dance)’ by the 18th Hong Kong Arts Development Awards.

His recent choreographies with CCDC include Mr Blank (2018), Re-mark (world premiere in 2018; Hong Kong premiere in 2019), Pa | Ethos (world premiere in 2015; Hong Kong premiere in 2022), Meeting In-between Time (2022), Stream of Dust (2023) and As if Snowing (2024).

Other cross-disciplinary creations and choreographic works include the dance video There is a Place, co-commissioned by CCDC and Dance Glasgow (the UK); a collaborative work with Goat Media (Scottland), musician/composer Dickson Dee and a local company of emerging and innovative technology LazyAnt, together they created an interactive installation between dance and technology – Hyperchoreography; Mr Blank video and sound installation at ‘On the Road 2023’, Guan Shanyue Art Museum (Shenzhen) and As it were by GöteborgsOperans Danskompani (Sweden).

About City Contemporary Dance Company

Founded in 1979, City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) is the flagship of contemporary dance in Hong Kong. Since its inception, CCDC has presented over 200 critically acclaimed original works, delivering professional dance productions to audiences across the city. The Company is committed to shaping the contemporary dance scene with extraordinary performances that embody contemporary Hong Kong culture.

In 2025, CCDC welcomed its fifth Artistic Director, Dang Jijia. Building on his extensive experience with the Company, Sang is dedicated to pursuing excellence in local contemporary dance and exploring interdisciplinary development. Concurrently, CCDC has been actively engaged in global cultural exchange, having toured numerous cities worldwide and hosted international dance festivals and film festivals locally. By bring together dance talents, the Company fosters collaborations across diverse artistic fields, showcasing the power of Hong Kong dance to the world while highlighting the diversity of contemporary dance to local audiences.

CCDC aspires to make dance more accessible to the community while nurturing professional dancers. For the past three decades, CCDC Dance Centre has unceasingly offered dance courses and pre-professional training, while organising outreach programmes to promote dance in the broader community.

City Contemporary Dance Company is financially supported by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

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