SUSAN STREET was dean of the School of Dance at the Academy for Performing Arts when the Hong Kong Arts Development Council provided funding for the Hong Kong Dance Festival.
Not long after, however, she had to leave Hong Kong to take up a position in Australia, as executive dean of the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology.
But Professor Street very much wished to continue to be involved in the dance festival, and so she was happy to get a part in the programme as convenor of the International Dance Education Conference, scheduled for June 14-17.
She was also responsible for coming up with the festival's three main themes: imagine, capture and project.
'I thought in terms of what success looks like,' she said. 'You start by dreaming. We imagine and we capture opportunities. And our third step is to project.'
The conference is titled 'Imagining the future: dance education in the 21st century'. Dance academics from around the world will be presenting papers and discussing topics ranging from dance theory and country analysis to how technology is changing dance.