After more than two years, Covid-19 is still hitting our lives hard. In the face of the work and life changes imposed on us by the outbreak, one response is to improve yourself through further education.
In her studies, Melissa Leung, set to be a member of the graduating class in the Academy's new Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programme in Drama majoring in Dramaturgy, has been applying the workplace knowledge she acquired as a dramaturg at the City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC). This encourages her to explore the performing arts with a novel mindset.
Carrie Wong will also graduate next year with a Master of Fine Arts in Drama, with a specialisation in Drama and Theatre Education. She previously spent a decade writing and directing for television. When work hit a lull, she stepped out of her no-longer-comfortable comfort zone to tackle the brave new world of theatre, and is engaging in some soul-searching while she's at it.
Firing Up True Passion
Melissa Leung was no stranger to the theatre. Over the years, she had taken part in numerous performances, and was a staunch promoter of performing-arts education. She credits Chris Shum, her secondary-school teacher as well as a lyricist for music and drama, as the person who initiated her into theatre. But her passion was truly ignited when, in her freshman year as a sports major, she took part in a workshop by Prospects Theatre Company that led to her performing in The Black and Blue of a Man, written and directed by Professor Poon Wai-sum, the company's artistic director from 1993 to 2012, and who went on to become Dean of Drama of the Academy before he retired.
"I hadn't received any professional training before that," she recalls. "I was lucky to have been given abundant opportunities by my seniors and predecessors. At some point, I began to realise that I had to further my knowledge, rather than continue to run on passion alone." Around the time of Melissa's realisation, a performing-arts school founded by Kuo Pao-kun, a pioneer of Singapore's theatre scene, was recruiting students in Hong Kong. She enrolled in a professional performing-arts programme, and upon its completion, sojourned in Korea and Singapore as a theatre educator.
After returning to Hong Kong, Melissa joined the CCDC as a director and education promoter. It was around that time that the Academy launched its MFA in Drama (Dramaturgy). Melissa admits that she did not know much about dramaturgy then. "After finding out a bit more, I realised how complex it is," she admits. The discipline involves elements of directing, writing, literary study, and research. "So what exactly is it?"
As the first Company Dramaturg in Hong Kong's dance circle, Melissa's responsibilities go beyond production. She participates in creative discussions, analyses the structure of dance pieces, works with texts, and compiles data; she is also a curator. "I am involved in programme curation, devising developmental strategies and objectives, with the aim of giving contemporary dance resonance," she says.
She admits to being "a little ambitious" in that she hopes to introduce dramaturgical thinking into the dance company. Melissa looks forward to sharing those concepts with her colleagues and the industry. "We often talk about creative collaboration," she notes. "Dramaturgy is more complex than interdisciplinary collaboration. In theatre, everyone is an artist, whether their duties belong to the stage, backstage, or the office. How does each person bring dramaturgical practice to their role?"
Discovering Her Lost Self
Carrie Wong's journey of self-exploration was less straightforward. She loved performing as a child, and dreamt of becoming a comedic actor. But she wanted to understand society as well, and enrolled in the programme for government and public administration at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She went on to join Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) as a producer on the TV side. In the next decade, she won international television awards three times.
However, there have been policy changes at the workplace. It was while dealing with acute reductions in resources and a significantly heavier workload that she was seized by an unexpected illness.
"All of a sudden, I couldn't move. It was terrifying," she explains. She found herself first in an ambulance, then the emergency room. "But the doctors couldn't find a cause," she continues. "I thought: Is there something I've always wanted to do but haven't? The first thing that came to mind was studying at the Academy – not being able to do so had been my greatest regret."
In fact, Carrie had never surrendered her childhood dream of becoming a dramatist. While at RTHK, she had applied to the Academy's Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama programme. "Every time I went to a stage performance, I would read the actor profiles," she remembers. "I noticed most of the best ones were HKAPA graduates. It was clear to me that if you want to be good at acting, you go to the Academy." To her dismay, she was rejected. It made her doubt her talent. "I only came to learn much later that many Academy applicants apply seven or eight times," she says. "I had given up too quickly."
After recuperating, Carrie had a chance encounter with the Academy teacher who had interviewed her during her initial application. The instructor encouraged her to apply for the MFA in Drama (Drama and Theatre Education) degree programme, and she did.
The admissions interview went surprisingly well. She feels she outperformed herself, even in the improvisation section that worried her most. "The teacher recruited acting majors to perform a play with the candidates," she says. "The students helped me to get into character quickly, and after I did, I started bawling my eyes out non-stop. I surprised myself – hey, I can act too!"
What impressed Carrie most at the Academy was the expansiveness of the networks for the teachers, which often span the globe. She feels the Academy and Estella Wong, the Acting Dean of the School of Drama, have lured many of the world's top drama teachers to Hong Kong to lecture. Carrie notes that Professor John O'Toole came to host a workshop on process drama. "It really opened our eyes," she says.
It isn't only workshopping with masters that has broadened Carrie's perspective. The applied-theatre classes enable her to find deeper meaning in her artistic explorations. For instance, in her first year, she designed a process drama and put it into practice in a drama class for secondary students, as a means to get them to contemplate life topics. For her, this is more meaningful and fulfilling than purely acting.
"I love drama. I love education," she insists. "I enjoy using drama to inspire students. It makes me very happy." Carrie also creates interactive theatre, forum theatre and immersive theatre with her classmates, projects that allow her to command audience attention. "Engagement is important in drama," she explains. "Applied theatre makes possible deep and direct dialogues with the audience. We found ourselves slowly falling in love with applied theatre."
Last year, Carrie and two other students applied to stage an interactive performance in the Studio Theatre. "That performance showed me just how much I have improved," she says. Under the guidance of lecturer Terence Chang, she and her cohorts learnt through practice how to interact with each other, and pondered how to design participatory theatre that would give viewers room for contemplation. "I got a great sense of achievement from that whole experience," she says.
As Carrie enters the final phase of her MFA, she just wants to enjoy her time, without worrying about concrete plans for the future. "The pandemic has suspended classes yet again," she laments. "I see it as an opportunity to give my mind a break." She has more time to exercise, she says, and she also has time to read, to do what she enjoys.
"Life has been relentlessly marching us forward, and monopolising our time and energy," she says. "The pandemic, too, shall pass some day."
The article was published in the May 2022 issue of Academy News. Click here to read the original story.)
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