(8 December 2021, Hong Kong) City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) is proud to present Pa | Ethos, a creation of resident choreographer Sang Jijia, from 21^st – 23^rd January 2022 at Theatre, Sai Wan Ho Civic Centre. A cast made up of dance artists from CCDC will perform the work’s Hong Kong premiere.

Pa | Ethos was first commissioned by multiple international arts festivals and had its world premiere at Fabbrica Europa per le arti contemporanee in Italy, by Spellbound Contemporary Ballet in 2015. The work later toured to Guangdong Dance Festival in China and Oriente Occidente Dance Festival and Prospettiva Danza in Italy.

Moving Body, Expressive Soul

Pa | Ethos is a composition of two words, Pathos and Ethos, borrowed from Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric. Sang uses them to signify two approaches to the subject discussed. Ethos underlines precision, Pathos evokes passion and feeling.

The work is based on Italian plastic art of the classical era and is divided into two parts. The first looks at the rules of social life, where interpersonal relations are rigidly distributed. Each movement in space is well measured and carefully executed. In the second, emotions are translated into the physicality of the dancers; taking stage action to its most extreme, they achieve complete transparency of body through which the soul is revealed in its entirety.

CCDC Resident Choreographer Sang Jijia, who comes from Tibet, is a global award-winning artist. He studied under William Forsythe in Germany and stayed on at Ballet Frankfurt and the Forsythe Company as assistant choreographer and dancer. He is celebrated for his extremely physical and emotional movement language. The music was composed by the talented Dickson Dee (Li Chin Sung). As an experienced music producer and sound artist, his style ranges from avant-garde and experimental to music concrete, electronic, new classical, industrial noise, dance and electronic world jazz. The pair have long collaborated with Sang’s poetic choreography in tune with Dee’s impactful electronic music, concisely revealing abstract concepts, and constructing rigorous but expressive performances.

Pa | Ethos is the final production in CCDC’s dance season of “Why 冬 We Dance”. A brand new dance season 2022-23 with the theme of “Spring” will be launched in the near future. Stay tuned!

Pa | Ethos Key Creators:

Choreography | Sang Jijia

CCDC Resident Choreographer Sang Jijia has won numerous international dance awards as well as the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship to study in the US. In 2002, he was chosen by the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative to study choreography under William Forsythe in Germany and stayed on at Ballet Frankfurt and the Forsythe Company as assistant choreographer and dancer. Sang returned to China in 2006 and, since then, has created a number of full-length works for BeijingDance/LDTX, Guangdong Modern Dance Company and CCDC. He has received commissions from famous dance companies across the world, including the Norwegian dance company Carte Blanche and Spellbound Contemporary Ballet, Italy. Sang is celebrated for his extremely physical and emotional movement language and his use of electronic music to interpret abstract concepts.

Original Music | Dickson Dee

Dickson Dee (Li Chin Sung) is an experienced music producer and sound artist from Hong Kong, who is most passionate about experimental music. He set up his own music label, Noise Asia, in the early 1990s and another personal label, Dicksonia Audio, to promote new music and curate different cultural exchange projects in Hong Kong and around the world. Since then, he has established himself in the creative field with musical styles ranging from avant-garde and experimental to music concrete, electronic, new classical, industrial noise, dance and electronic world jazz. He has collaborated with various artists and been invited to perform at many different festivals, including Venice Biennale, Cologne Music Triennale, Yokohama Triennale, Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts, Taiwan International Music Festival, Fabbrica EUROPA, Bergen International Art Festival, Shanghai International Art Festival, Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, New Vision Arts Festival Hong Kong, Art Basel Hong Kong, and International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong.