Choreographer and dancer Mui Cheuk-yin gets into politics
One of the city's leading dance figures tells Kevin Kwong and Bernice Chan why it's time to stand up and be counted
Choreographer and dancer Mui Cheuk-yin used to think that the role of an artist was simply to create. But after decades focused on expressing herself through movement, Mui has had something of a political awakening.
That's why the 53-year-old is competing in polls on Sunday and Monday to nominate sectoral representatives to the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (ADC).
Local dance professionals have long been indifferent to politics, Mui says. Most dancers see matters of governance and policy-making as peripheral to their lives. "It has nothing to do with us … we just do our best in our work and that's it - that is our job," she says.
But stints on several government advisory bodies, including the Advisory Committee on Arts Development (2010-12), have made Mui realise that "it doesn't work that way".
She adds that artists, particularly established ones, have a responsibility to help build an ecology that can enable the various art forms to thrive and develop.
"Over the past couple of years I was forced to think about the Hong Kong situation; I've had many discussions with fellow professionals in the arts and have become more aware of the problems we face," says Mui, an associate choreographer at the City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC).
The lack of a collective voice among dance professionals has meant they have largely been marginalised - a problem that is, she admits, also of their own making. So it's time for her to speak up.