Ringo CHAN

In 1980 Ringo Chan accepted Willy TSAO’s invitation to join the City Contemporary Dance Company as a member of the first group of professional contemporary dancers. After that, Ringo worked with CCDC for almost 36 years. He grew up with the Company and witnessed Hong Kong dance scene’s development from amateur to professional. Having engaged in the development of local creativity from the start, Ringo was an indisputable pioneer of Hong Kong arts.

Ringo was also a renowned dance photographer. He had always been aware of the importance of archiving in the promotion of dance’s development. He began photographing and filming for performing arts companies in the 1980s, receiving commissions from local and overseas organisations to shoot publicity and production images. Since 1983, he had held dance photography exhibitions in Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China and the US. In 1998, he published Hong Kong’s first dance photography book The Dance Photography of Ringo Chan, funded by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. His dance photography was collected by the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. He was also commissioned by the Hong Kong Dance Alliance to produce a documentary Why They Dance to record and promote local dance development. In 2014, CCDC presented his solo exhibition “35 Moments: Dance Photography by Ringo Chan” in celebration of the 35^th anniversary of the Company.

– Excerpted from In Memory of Ringo Chan 1959 – 2016