Scene 3: Awareness, Unawareness, Ignorance or Abuse?

E: It is common practice for street dancers to follow a hierarchy when working on performance making in the Hong Kong street dance scene, no matter if it's a commercial job or studio showcase. Street dance is tightly related to the use of music and most of the time street dancers focus on the relationship between music and movement to build up their choreography. Unlike theatre dance practice, and especially in contemporary dance, there are devising performers and dancers who are required to come up with their own material to assist the creative process.

I: So cross-work titles are needed for crediting people’s contributions to the work!

E: But this blurs the line of responsibility between choreographer and dancer and that’s where things get complicated. 

R: Yet, my street dancer friends also shared their impressions on the differences between street dance and theatre dance. Theatre dance is more formal, with a higher cultural status and it operates with more artistic enquiries, whilst street dance is the more popular dance form and it’s seen in movies, pop concerts, television programmes and advertisements. Most street dancers of our generation started to know of and learn street dance through the Danso (slang for Dance Society) in different universities and tertiary education institutions. They usually continue dancing, learning or teaching in local studios and anyone who has studied in universities in the past 20 years must have witnessed, if not participated in Danso events.

E: Danso in Hong Kong universities is a big occasion for lots of people. Each of the Danso holds their Annual Performance and then there’s Mass Dance, the inter-university dance touring, and IVDC - the Inter-Versity Dance Competition held every year. All of these performances are created through the same choreographer-dancer work structure, and you know what, people celebrate their passion for dancing through these performances. Back in the day, people would rehearse intensely overnight every night until the show, despite having classes during the daytime. They are good examples and prove that hierarchy works well! The sense of community in Danso is so strong that alumni and former committee members would go back to join their Danso performances for years after they graduated!

I: It sounds glamorous when you’ve never actually experienced the actual Danso life. You wouldn’t know how stressful it could be - physically and mentally - in this passion hype for dancing!

R: The most intense rehearsal process I’ve heard about is from a street dancer friend for a dance competition. I was shocked that she was once in a competition where the co-choreographers made the whole team rehearse a 10 minute piece 11 times in a row, non-stop to practice their unison…

I: I would definitely see this as an abuse of power and would even challenge the choreographer's ability to teach and work in such an exploitative way!

R: Yes!! And even more mind-blowing was that the street dancer who told me about this experience didn’t see it as abuse… rather it’s an extreme resort to practice for perfect unison and to experience one’s own flesh and blood and build a sense of community through dancing… 

I: I won’t override her opinion, but if I were on that team, then lots of questions and doubts would just shoot out my mouth! How was the decision made? Were there really no better ways to refine the unison bits? Does being a dancer, either professional or amateur, mean exploiting oneself? What if dancers get injured because of fatigue? Has this already derailed them from celebrating passion, freedom and community into authority and conformity?! 

R: It is not hard to imagine even if you think it is exploitative, but the collective silence of 30 people could just mute your own urge to call it out…I don’t know if the choreographers were intentionally exploiting them, being unbelievably old-fashioned or using a vigorous practice to vent on the team not unable to meet “their standards”. I can’t make that judgement as I was not part of it…

I: Even though we may not be the first person experiencing workplace abuse, as outsiders we still hold power to encourage people to discuss what happened. It was really heart-wrenching and outrageous for me to hear that one of my dancer friends encountered year long verbal abuse and was gaslit when working for a dance company that is notorious for their questionable work ethics…my friend eventually left the company but still got really traumatised and had to get professional help to overcome the mental hardship.

R: It is difficult to be explicit here because again, I was not the person encountering the abuse and I have an obligation to protect my friend. From my understanding of the situation, the choreographers always disguised the verbal abuse that criticised dancers’ abilities and personal worth as pushing for their improvements…reducing their self-worth to whether they can achieve the choreographers’ requirements or not. An unnecessary harshness framed as “high standards” whilst pursuing artistic perfection. 

I: Shame on them. Manipulating a performer's stress to achieve those “grand goals!” There are always other ways to make things work but some people choose abuse! What do you have to say about artistic perfection at the expense of collaborators’ wellbeing Egoist Ching? 

E: There is no need to use verbal abuse to get the best out of people. If my dancers could not meet my standard, abusing them wouldn’t make things better. I would either put more time into constructive directions, perhaps ask the dancers to practice 11 more times in extreme cases or simply hire new dancers for the next project! 

I: I still find it problematic to make dancers run a piece 11 times in a row, non-stop…even YOU can see alternative ways. This is a good example of what an abuse of power can look like. It is completely unrelated to job responsibility, but rather, abusive people using their positions and titles as an excuse to justify their problematic behaviour and gaslight into tolerating and enduring abuse. We should talk more about it openly!!

Scene 4: Cliché and Flipping the Script on Cliché…

R: When I first started learning to dance, a teacher, who is now also a friend and work collaborator, asked a question that has imprinted on my mind and hugely impacted my mentality towards working in the arts. “Can rehearsals be a way of nurturing our body and mind, rather than a way of exploitation for the sparkles on stage?” As dancers, we are taught to see the moments on stage as the most important thing, even when it means you need to sacrifice yourself for the performance's sake. Injuries happen because we have to ignore the fatigue and keep pushing. Mental issues emerge because we are always asked to be tough. We are asked to discard our inner selves to meet other people’s standards and expectations. 

I: But if you truly love what you do, wouldn’t you want to sustain your dance life as long as possible? 

R: There are a lot of standardised ways of doing things that could be done differently. Referring back to Isaac’s reflections on how to inquire on trauma  - apart from commodifying it into a flattened perception of hardship - another way is to open up interpretations that can derive from it into resolutions, joy and compassion.

I: Sustainability is the biggest principle to live by when we talk about career development. Street dance and the performing arts cannot sever relationships from one collaboration to the next. I believe we all want to make things better for others through the arts, and because we are working with humans, we just can’t think about ourselves. I know it’s cliché but it’s only by exercising values such as respect, reciprocity, and trust that we can start to create safe spaces for healthy collaborations.

R: Such values are demonstrated with clear communication on expectations and responsibilities, no matter who you are in the team. We always say “be more open-minded,” but it’s easier said than done. It is a complicated mentality-action relay that requires us to be willing to step out of our patterns, be present and sensitive to situations we encounter, and to actively search for more suitable ways when working with different individuals.

E: The logic is simple. Setting clear responsibilities for each role is the first step to avoid any misunderstanding. To work things out requires us to be introspective and clear on our intentions and to evaluate if it is necessary to do certain things. For example, lashing out at people when a rehearsal process gets stuck just creates unnecessary tension between collaborators, which doesn’t help the creative process. What about in situations where exploitation and abuse happen?

I: Sadly, the measures that protect people from being abused are always missed! We may not be able to detect abusive people in advance, but we can look out for the misalignment between what people say and what they do. When someone says to you they mean good to you, yet what they actually do makes you feel uncomfortable or bad or they invalidate your hard feelings, it is a red flag!

R: When I encounter street dancers, I can really feel their urge to expand street dance development in Hong Kong. Compared to the international scenes of dance development - no matter if it is street dance or theatre dance - our scene is often left behind. In our generation, stereotypes and projections towards each art form still exist and are hurdles for us if we want to collaborate. With the emergence of the term “street dance theatre” it is sparking continued discussions on: the power dynamics between the forms and genres, how street dance and theatre can (or cannot) integrate artistically and how it impacts the dance scene. We should also acknowledge that lots of people are contributing their invisible effort to the industry. Sometimes I feel frustrated and not able to talk about work ethics as the norm tends to be that we don’t address the elephant in the room. Most of my experience lies in the field next to street dance, but with each rumination it helps me to become clearer that creating a better work environment for the whole performing arts scene is a crucial topic. We should all be raising an awareness on this not-so-glamorous side of the industry because the details that are invisible off stage have a huge impact on it. 

I: We need to keep talking and discussing when these issues emerge. Awareness needs to continue and changes can happen, but as street dance theatre is still in its bud stage, it really depends on this first generation of Hong Kong creators to stay sensitive, reject toxic work practices and set up a healthy work practice for themselves and the next generation.