ReviewAlmost 55 pays tribute to dancer Qiao Yang’s 23-year history at Hong Kong’s City Contemporary Dance Company

Almost 55 pays tribute to one of Hong Kong’s most distinguished dancers, Qiao Yang, who’s been a member of City Contemporary Dance Company for 23 years. As the title implies, the veteran artist turns 55 in 2019 and this full-length solo piece tells her story, celebrates her talent and showcases her extraordinary longevity.

Qiao has always been an outstanding artist, yet perhaps the most remarkable phase of her career has been the Indian summer of her 50s, which has seen her continue to create new roles not only for senior choreographers like Helen Lai Hoi-ling, whose muse she has long been, but for young talents like Anh Ngoc Nguyen and Victor Fung.

Many of these productions featured the enthralling partnership Qiao built with dancer Kelvin Mak, some 20 years her junior – a classic example of the way such a partnership can rejuvenate the older dancer and inspire the younger one.

Almost 55 opens with Qiao going through an extended warm-up on stage – her astounding flexibility in these stretching exercises (Sylvie Guillem eat your heart out) is worth the price of admission on its own.

The format of the piece is simple – interspersing solos with spoken sections in which Qiao recalls how she became a dancer, starting with Chinese folk dance in her native Shaanxi at the age of 12, discovering modern dance in her 20s and finally moving to Hong Kong and building her career here.

This is a collaboration with Taiwananese choreographer Chou Shu-yi, who worked closely with Qiao on the project for over a year. Unfortunately, while Chou’s reverence for his subject comes over clearly, too much of his choreography fails to do her justice, with extended solos full of flailing and thrashing – while these high energy moves may demonstrate Qiao’s impressive stamina and skill, they convey little of the emotional power embodied by her best performances.