‘It is a healing process’: 3 Mother’s Day events in Hong Kong explore women’s lives through dance, photography and art
- In Womanhood, dancer Xie Yin shares her journey of self-discovery, while Gisèle Tchitchiama presents multimedia art exhibition Luminaria
- Xyza Cruz Bacani’s A Mother’s Day Exhibition photography show looks at the struggles faced in Hong Kong by migrant domestic workers who are mothers
Being a dancer gives Xie Yin more reason than most to keep tabs on how her body has changed over the years. For this year’s Mother’s Day, the Hong Kong-based choreographer is presenting her journey of self-discovery in a new work.
Womanhood, described as “a dance of ‘herstory’”, will be performed by four female dancers from the Hong Kong Dance Company (HKDC) from May 12 to 14 at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui.
“I have experienced pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and nurturing, and have seen various changes to my body during the repeated trials of endurance,” Xie says.
A former assistant artistic director of the HKDC who recently became a freelance choreographer, Xie says she wants to explore these transformations and the lives of everyday women.
The idea for Womanhood was shaped by her involvement in “As Flower, As Mother, As Water”, a 2020 research project by Hong Kong theatre director Ho Ying-fung comprising interviews with 100 mothers from different socioeconomic backgrounds.