Samantha Leese talks with acclaimed choreographer Yuri Ng has about his latest dance piece, Have Steps, Will Travel, and what it really means to be a woman

Following the success of last year’s Dress Up to Dance, also directed by Ng, Have Steps, Will Travel is the second instalment in the Cultural Centre’s Macau Tales series, which aims to promote local artists and encourage creativity amongst Macau’s younger generation. Taking womanhood as its central theme, Ng has pushed his protégées to express themselves in ways that challenge how Chinese women see their place in what remains a male-dominated society.

Tell me about your dance workshop.

It’s something that was created by the Cultural Centre last year. They wanted me to create a dance workshop for Macau participants, which would emphasise the creative process. Most young people in Macau who are studying dance are not used to the creative burden being on them. They are used to dancing existing works. I think the [people at] the Cultural Centre hoped that a workshop like this would encourage them to be more expressive. I’m here to let them know they should ask questions. I think we as art makers should get used to questioning everything.

What question are you asking with this year’s workshop?

How did you get the dancers to be more expressive?

I designed a series of exercises, and I gave them a questionnaire. One of the questions is: As a woman, what do you think you can, dare or should do [in a given situation]? Then I ask if they would decide the same if they were male. I’ve also prepared short wigs for them to wear and I’ve asked them to choose masculine stage names, because I want them to experience dressing up as boys.

Why? What are you trying to find out?

I’m curious about what they think. I want to know whether they really want to be girls, if they feel good about being female. The thing I’ve learned about working with girls is that they take things for granted. A lot of them take for granted that they should have long hair, should talk like this, or dance like this. I wanted to spend a few days figuring out what they really think. These girls have more potential than they allow for. So hopefully after a few sessions they will surprise me, and surprise themselves with what they create.

Have you ever dressed as a woman?

When I was in junior high school, we had a drama festival and, since it was an all boy’s school, I had to dress up as a woman. I remember putting on a wig, and my mother’s dress, and then performing and saying my lines in a high voice. It was a very interesting thing. I didn’t want to be a woman, but dressing up as one, trying to play a woman… you have to understand what women are. And that is a valuable exercise.

So you’re blurring the lines of sexuality in order to get them to embrace their femininity.

I want them to be more certain about who they are, whether it’s female or not. Female, they can’t really change that. But what do you want to do with it? For example, do you want to get married? What does marriage mean to you? Do you want to marry a man or a woman or an art form? Is there something else that you want to dedicate your life to? I need to answer big questions every day: as a dancer, are you selling your art, your body, your soul? What are you selling to [your choreographer], to your company? Are you on sale?

It seems more for the dancers’ benefit than for the audience’s.

Yes, exactly. I don’t want to call them performers, they are workshop participants. It’s really not a performance project.

Presuming you will have an audience, though, how do you think they’ll react?

The audience is expecting a spectacle, so it’s important to be clear that this is not one of those shows. Unless you’ve been to the workshop every day to see how the girls improve, how they behave from day one, you don’t know what’s gone into this. But I want the spectators to question us.

You’ve pushed your dancers to question an identity, which they may have lost because of the stereotypes they face in China. Would you expect different results from this workshop if you did it in New York or London?

There’s not as much need there. This is targeted for Macanese dancers. It wouldn’t make sense somewhere else.

How do you feel about dance as a form of expression, as opposed to, say, acting?

When I work with my dancers, I’m manipulating bodies. But I’m also manipulating their minds. To express physically what you cannot express verbally is a difficult translation. You can never make a person move the way you want if they don’t understand why they’re dancing that way. You can pay them to pretend, but if they don’t understand, it doesn’t look willing enough.

What is your ultimate dream as a choreographer?

I want to do my best works in the next ten years. I want to communicate how I see life, how I see time and people.

What’s your advice to young artists?

To be more curious about the world, and themselves. To ask ‘why?’ more often, and to not be afraid of the answer.

Have Steps, Will Travel shows at the Macau Cultural Centre Sat 21-Sun 22, 8pm. For information and tickets call (853) 2840 0555; www.ccm.gov.mo.