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Liu Yu-yao, Shen Jie and Leung Chun Long perform Bolero by choreographers Yuh Egami and Ricky Hu, winner of this year’s award for outstanding ensemble performance.

Post writer Natasha Rogai honoured at Hong Kong Dance Awards

Critic is praised for her service to the city’s dance culture, as City Contemporary Dance Company, Hong Kong Dance Company, Hong Kong Ballet and Unlock Dancing Plaza also take awards

Natasha Rogai.
South China Morning Post reviewer Natasha Rogai was honoured for her work in dance criticism at the 18th Hong Kong Dance Awards on Friday. The other winner in the outstanding service to dance category was theatre critic Lo Wai-luk for his 2015 publication In Search of Hong Kong Dance.

Rogai began writing for the Post in 2005 and has since been reviewing dance performances by flagship as well as independent companies, local and international, on a regular basis.

Anna Chan Chung-ying, head of artistic development (dance) at the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, says Rogai contributes to the local dance scene not only with her critical writing but also her efforts in supporting and nurturing up-and-coming dance critics in the city through last year’s “Dance Enhance”, a programme supported by the Hong Kong Dance Alliance and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. “The award is well-deserved,” she says.

City Contemporary Dance Company’s Soledad won three awards. Photo: Ringo Chan
As a writer, Rogai has interviewed artists including Helen Lai Hoi-ling, Yuri Ng Yue-lit, Alexei Ratmansky, Sergei Filin, Dame Antoinette Sibley, Nina Ananiashvili and Li Cunxin. As well as writing for the Post, she also contributes to Dancing Times in the UK.

City Contemporary Dance Company’s Soledad , a piece based on Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, won three awards in outstanding choreography for Helen Lai, outstanding production, and outstanding ensemble performance.

Helen Lai’s choreography for Soledad was honoured. Photo: Ringo Chan
Also named outstanding ensemble performance was Hong Kong Ballet’s Bolero, choreographed by the company’s Yuh Egami and Ricky Hu.

There were also two winners in outstanding performance by a male dancer: Hong Kong Dance Company’s Li Han for his role in L’Amour Immortel and Hong Kong Ballet’s Shen Jie in Romeo and Juliet.

Outstanding performance by a female dancer went to Tang Ya in L’Amour Immortel. Unlock Dancing Plaza’s Boy Story. Reborn picked up an award for outstanding independent production.

The annual Dance Awards are presented by the Hong Kong Dance Alliance, the local chapter of the World Dance Alliance.

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