The Connected Stage Series: Kylián and Sangba

EVENT DESCRIPTION

City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) proudly presents its flagship 2026 production Kylián and Sangba, bringing together a European dance legend and an Eastern choreographic voice in a historic pairing that pushes the extremes of physical expression and stages a dialogue across time and consciousness.

The programme takes place on 30–31 October 2026 at the Hall, East Kowloon Cultural Centre.

Sleepless uses abstract movement to convey the insomniac’s loneliness and the drifting of consciousness.
Czech choreographer Jiří Kylián, who served as Artistic Director of Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) for more than twenty-five years, has written countless legendary chapters in twentieth-century contemporary dance, with works celebrated on stages worldwide.
First performed in 2004, Sleepless is one of Kylián’s most representative contemporary dance works. Inspired by the choreographer’s acute observation of the shifting states of consciousness during sleepless nights, and by Argentine artist Lucio Fontana’s concept of ‘slashing the canvas’, Sleepless subtly disrupts the traditional spatial dimensions of the stage. Six dancers, engaged in a physical dialogue that balances suppleness and tension, precisely evoke the insomniac’s loneliness, struggle and drifting awareness in the deep night. The score blends the ethereal glass harmonica of Mozart’s Adagio KV 617 with contemporary electronic sound, leaving time to linger between stillness and suspension, and drawing the audience into a visually exquisite, soul-stirring dreamscape.

a | ch layers distance and proximity, the real and the illusory, leaving space for unfinished imagination.
Selected for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative and trained in Germany under William Forsythe, CCDC Artistic Director Sang Jijia is renowned on the international dance scene for his intense kinetic aesthetic, spatial tension and integration of multimedia visuals.
In his new work a | ch, Sang turns his gaze towards a realm of constant flux between the real and the virtual. “Things continually appear and disappear; there is no fixed, ultimate form,” he says. In this piece he dissolves singular boundaries, interweaving far and near views, overlaying light, shadow and movement. The work refuses to be read at a glance—art never hands over its full meaning outright, but leaves gaps, inviting the viewer to keep looking and to return again and again. In the world of a | ch, the audience’s gaze travels through layer upon layer of scenery, with no final conclusion and no end point; through sustained awareness and forward motion, new paths open out within difference, revealing fresh beauty and meaning. This is not only a visual feast, but a rare opportunity to explore the limits of perception alongside the choreographer.

A master-level aesthetic encounter – two performances only, not to be missed
One work traces an intimate inner monologue; the other reveals the layered flow of the world. Classic and new creation enter into dialogue, inviting the theatre to re-examine time, states of mind and the forms of life. Watching is itself an endless wandering. Through sustained awareness and forward motion, new paths open out within difference, revealing fresh beauty and meaning. A double bill that moves from the inner self out to the world, pitting two peak works against each other in fierce creative exchange. Kylián and Sangba plays for two performances only.

DATES AND TIME
30 October 2026 (Fri), 8:00pm*
31 October 2026 (Sat), 8:00pm
*With post-performance meet-the-artist session

CREATIVE TEAM

Sleepless
Choreography and Set Design: Jiří Kylián
Stager: Urtzi Aranburu
Music Concept: Jiří Kylián
Music: Dirk Haubrich, composition based on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Glass Harmonica + Quartet, Adagio K617 (1791)
Lighting Design: Kees Tjebbes
Costume Design: Joke Visser
Technical Supervision: Joost Biegelaar
World première: November 11, 2004, Lucent Danstheater, Den Haag, the Netherlands, Nederlands Dans Theater 2

a | ch
Choreography: Sang Jijia
Music: KUNG Chi-shing, Olivier CONG
Set and Lighting Design: Lawmanray
Video Co-design: Oliver SHING, CHAN Ka-ho
Costume Design: Cheryl CHING
Sound Design: Anthony YEUNG

Performance:
AN Tzu-huan, CHEN Dai-wen, CHEN Jia-wen, Jon Henri FERRER, GAO Sheng-ting, Suyi HON, HUANG Teng-sheng, JIANG Xu-ling, Stephanie LI, SHUM Pui-yung, Alliah Xandra TORTE, YANG Yu, Skye YAO.