CHING-YING CHIEN
choreographer / dance artist
NEWS & UPCOMING EVENTS
BIOGRAPHY
Born in 1988,Taiwan. Graduated from Department of Dance, National Taiwan University of Arts.
Freelance artist work with Akram Khan Company (UK) and Compagnie du Hanneton (FR)
She has worked with Akram Khan Company since “iTMOi” in 2013. Her performance in “Until the Lions” won the Outstanding Female Performance (Modern) at the 2016 National Dance Awards (UK). Dance critic Lyndsey Winship also praised her “a woman of powerful but serene stillness, who shape-shifts between delicate, melting movements, stubborn decisiveness and contorted convulsing.” And “Outwitting the Devil” in 2019.She is also as a Akram Khan Company rehearsal director and company repertoire workshop teacher.
In 2020. She started working with James Thierrée -Compagnie de Hanneton in creation “Mo’s” and “ROOM”.
She has also collaborated with different choreographers and companies in Taiwan, such as Fang-Yi Sheu, Shu-Yi Chou and HORSE theater. Besides theater performance, she also worked as the art model and improvising dancer for Guo-qiang Cai’s “Day and Night”, a gunpowder drawing. She was the dancer and choreographer for “Stranger”, a music video for hip-hop musician Plan B, and few videos for British electronic band The Chemical Brothers, both projects directed by Adam Smith. Together with Akram Khan, she co-created a duet for “Can We Live with Robots”, a TV documentary commissioned by Channel 4. Recently, she performed in “The Silent Burn Project” - a documentary celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Akram Khan company during the Covid pandemic time.
Her 2018 choreography piece “Vulture”also been selected as one of twenty pieces in Aerowave 2023.
CREATION
CY's theater productions
VULTURE
2018
The initial inspiration for this piece came from an old Tibetan myth about vultures. It is said that nobody ever sees the body of a deceased vulture. When a vulture knows its life is close to ending it will fly high up towards the sun and melt away into nothing. The idea of hiding weakness and controlling your end ties in with the Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus. Man imitating nature and failing. The vulture is a creature that only survives because of another's death. It is part of a food chain that humans have transcended. But in the human race there are always those who benefit from others misfortunes.
THE MOON UPON A STICK
First creation on Nov 2022.
Second creation on Aug 2023 at The Place,London.
Research the nature of dream states/humor/the abstract and surrealism. Creating character transformation, illusion and small scale spaces on stage that reflect and contrast a wider world picture. Exploring physical elasticity, tension and release in both mental and physical ways.
COLLABORATION
collaborations in art installation, documentary, music videos, motion capture, etc.
CAN WE LIVE WITH ROBOTS
2017
explored their impact on human relationships in a thought-provoking documentary, Can We Live With Robots?, commissioned by Channel 4.
Travelling the world from the UK to Japan, Akram met with several scientists and their creations of AI that already coexist with humans. In doing so, he confronts his own scepticism of how we can form emotional connections with machines. Akram responds with a duet performed by Akram himself and Company dancer Ching-Ying Chien.
PERFORMANCES
performing in other choreographer/director's productions
LA COMPAGNIE DU HANNETON - ROOM
2022-Now
Created/performed by James Thierrée
With
Anne-Lise Binard, Ching-Ying Chien, Mathias Durand, Samuel Dutertre, Hélène Escriva, Steeve Eton, Maxime Fleau, Nora Horvath, Sarah Manesse, Alessio Negro
LA COMPAGNIE DU HANNETON-MO'S
2021-2022
Created/performed by James Thierrée
With
Ching-Ying Chien : dancer
Mathias Durand : guitars, bass, piano
Samuel Dutertre: actor, technician
Hélène Escriva : euphonium, bass trumpet, voice
Steeve Eton : saxophone, voice, clarinet
Damien Fleau : saxophone, keyboards, bass
Maxime Fleau : drums and percussion, clarinet, countertenor
Nora Horvath : dancer
Valentin Mussou : cello
AKRAM KHAN COMPANY-
OUTWITTING THE DEVIL
2019
Artistic Director/Choreographer Akram Khan
Dramaturg Ruth Little
Lighting Designer Aideen Malone
Visual Designer Tom Scutt
Original Music Score and Sound Design Vincenzo Lamagna
Costume Designer Kimie Nakano
Writer Jordan Tannahill
Creative Associate and Coach Mavin Khoo
Rehearsal Directors Mavin Khoo, Azusa Seyama
performed by: Ching-Ying Chien, Andrew Pan, Dominique Petit, James Vu Anh Pham, Mythili Prakash, Sam Asa Pratt
Inspired by the newly discovered fragment of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world’s earliest surviving great works of literature, Akram’s work is a concentrated epic about ritual and remembering. In a landscape of broken tablets and fallen idols, its six characters trade their remaining wealth and stories, seeking to make whole the fragments of ancient knowledge lost and forgotten over time.
AKRAM KHAN COMPANY-
UNTIL THE LIONS
2016-2019
Director/Choreographer: Akram Khan
Narrative Concept/Scenario/Text: Karthika Naïr
Visual Design: Tim Yip
Lighting Design: Michael Hulls
Original Music Score composed by Vincenzo Lamagna, in collaboration with Sohini Alam, David Azurza, Yaron Engler, Akram Khan, Joy Alpuerto Ritter
Dramaturg Ruth Little
Assistant Director: Sasha Milavic Davies
Assistant Choreographer: Jose Agudo
Voice-ove:r Kathryn Hunter
Dancers: Ching-Ying Chien, Joy Alpuerto Ritter, Rianto
Musicians: Sohini Alam, Joseph Ashwin, David Azurza, Yaron Engler
In this partial adaptation of poet Karthika Naïr’s award-winning book Until the Lions: Echoes from the Mahabharata, an original reworking of the epic Mahabharata, Akram Khan uses kathak and contemporary dance to tell the tale of Amba, a princess abducted on her wedding day and stripped of her honour, who invokes the gods to seek revenge.
AKRAM KHAN COMPANY-
ITMOI (IN THE MIND OF IGOR)
2013-2015
Artistic Director/Choreographer Akram Khan
Composers Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost
Producer Farooq Chaudhry
Material devised and performed by
Kristina Alleyne, Sadé Alleyne, Ching-Ying Chien, Denis ‘Kooné’ Kuhnert, Yen-Ching Lin, TJ Lowe, Joy Alpuerto Ritter, Catherine Schaub Abkarian, Nicola Monaco, Blenard Azizaj and Cheng-An Wu
(Previous dancers: Hannes Langolf, Sung Hoon Kim)
“In this work, I am interested in the dynamics of how Stravinsky transformed the classical world of music by evoking emotions through patterns, rather than through expression, and these patterns were rooted in the concept of a woman dancing herself to death. this approach is a huge inspiration to me. But in a sense I hope to reinvestigate it, not just through patterns, as Stravinsky did, but also through exploring the human condition. a rupture in the mind, a death in the body, and a birth in the soul, all remind us that the mind and imagination are wild and self-generating. in addition, to be creating this work with three different composers, Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost, allows us to discover many different sound-worlds, using Stravinsky as the key, the guide, the map.”
– Akram Khan