'I'M BASICALLY a dark person,' says Dick Wong, sitting in the Fringe Club's roof garden on a bleak winter afternoon. 'I always believe that when you're really, really happy, you want to cry. When you are really, really sad, actually you can laugh about it. It's like a circle.' He pauses, and takes a sip of water. 'But the greatest sadness is numbness, when you can't react to anything, when you can't respond.'
These are heavy words for a Hong Kong-born choreographer and dancer who appears bright and playful when we meet. Clad in a hooded jumper and jeans, with amused, intelligent eyes, Wong is a confident and multi-faceted artist who worked as a senior reporter for Next Magazine before plunging into dance and extensive 'workshop-hopping' around Europe. He has now emerged with a distinct style of dance theatre that will be showcased in his upcoming commissioned work for the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
Dubbed B.O.B, the work promises to be an unusual show offering dance theatre with edge and attitude. Wong says, with camp melodrama, that the name is an abbreviation of 'Body, Oh, Body! Like an exclamation or a sigh.' He says that the show questions the place of the dancing body in modern society - and experiments with the relationship between the dancer and the audience.
Despite the work's strong comic element - with a rock MC, novelty guest stars and original dance music - it is the culmination of a dark period in Wong's life when he questioned the essence of dance and its role in modern society.
Wong, 41, has earned his performing reputation largely for his ability to push his body to the extreme. 'I'm not that conventional an actor. I'm a performer. Some directors want actors to have a role, a character. I'm not that kind of an actor. I present a state of mind, an atmosphere. Also, I can be quite hysterical - screaming, yelling, doing very crazy dances.'
He started his working life as a journalist, but delved into dance classes at university. He became more and more involved in dance, and took an intensive four-nights-a-week training course with the City Contemporary Dance Company.