Supporting Dance in A Global and Digital World

January 27, 2025

An Interview with Anna CY Chan, President of World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Anna CY Chan, Dean of Dance of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, is the president of World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific, an organization that functions as the primary voice and support group for dance in the Asia-Pacific region. Anna shares some of World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific’s core programs, such as the International Young Choreographer Project and the Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship, as well as how she hopes to shepherd World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific into the digital reality of the future.

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Can you give a short history of World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific? Why was it founded?

Forty years ago, the dance network relied on face-to-face meetings. There was no social media. Long-distance communication was either by fax machines or telephone calls. Dance was quite separated, apart from touring productions when people could see and understand the dance knowledge of each region and country.

In 1984, The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts was founded. Our first dean of the School of Dance was Carl Wolz. He believed it was important to bring everyone together to share knowledge, have conversations, and develop dance on the global stage. He created a lot of international platforms like International Festivals of Dance Academies in Hong Kong at the Academy. In the 80s and early 90s, the Academy was at the forefront of leading dance development. He started the Hong Kong International Dance Conference, bringing cultural institutions, students, and artists to Hong Kong to perform and take workshops. They created a kind of synergy; everyone wanted to continue the connection. That’s how, in 1990, the Global Dance Alliance’s main organization was founded at the Hong Kong International Dance Conference. That’s how everything started.

After several years, World Dance Alliance was expanding into a much more global network. We found there was a need to separate into three geographic regions: Asia Pacific, America, and Europe, as simple as that. Other places like Africa or the Middle East were not taken into consideration. At that time, there was a lack of connection. Since 1993, these three regional bodies have continued to expand and develop. There was a boom in the 90s and early 2000s. Asia Pacific has been very strong. We regularly organized dance festivals and conferences in Hong Kong as well as at chapters in other places. America’s arm was strong on the East Coast. Europe has many different dance networks, and therefore World Dance Alliance – Europe network is not booming. Having said that, every three years we have a global summit, so we support each other.

How is World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific organized?

There’s the global World Dance Alliance, and then there are three regions – Asia Pacific, America, and Asia – and then under each region we have chapters, organized either by cities, countries, or regions. Someone will be the chapter head, and they create a network. That’s how it works in the current structure.

But I have to say that this structure has been operating for the past 35 years, and now it’s time to renew because technology and how people network are very different. That’s part of my mission when I took over the president position in September 2024. Together with my executive board, I’m planning to restructure the future of World Dance Alliance. The hierarchical structure works well when people are relying on it to get information, filtering out the information from the top. With technology, we don’t need that. What is the future of building a dance community and how do we build a stronger dance community in this global and digital world?

What is the International Young Choreographer Project?

World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific has several signature projects. One is the International Young Choreographer Project, and the other is the Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship. These two plus an annual conference are our regular events. The International Young Choreographer Project builds on how we use this network to nurture future dance artists. Choreographers from the Asia Pacific spend three weeks in residency with young artists and showcase their work in an evening performance. We also extend opportunities for American and European choreographers to come together. That has been an annual event for the past 10 years.

Having said that, each year when the chapter organizes their own dance conference, some will bring a similar model to their own festivals to nurture young choreographers. It depends on their resources.

We found that bringing opportunities for young choreographers to come together and meet creates future networking and support systems. Young choreographers can be very isolated and don’t have resources. They are usually independent as well. Without this platform, they might not access international connections. Some become future leading choreographers.

What is the Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship?

The journal is to support young writers and scholars. A lot of journals pick more established scholars, and therefore it’s difficult for young scholars to climb the ladder. Led by our former president, Prof Unimala Sarkar, we decided to start this program about a decade ago for graduate students and for those five years out from graduation so they can present and publish their research. It’s operated similarly to other journals with a double-blind review process by international reviewers, but then we understand these are young scholars, so the reading and criteria will be slightly different. We also support them. If they are not quite there yet, a team of strong professionals vet the papers and give guidance on how to continue writing better. They get comments and feedback.

Looking forward, research tools have changed. For example, dance research often integrates video. We need to make a more forward-looking program to look at future trends. COVID has paused everything and has killed similar networks around the world when there was no funding. It’s all built on good will and good heart. These challenges and crises become opportunities for us to rethink what we do in the future.

Are there any other projects or initiatives of World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific that you’d like to share?

We always have a biannual channel that’s a way for us to document all our chapters’ information. So if anyone is interested in the archives of Asia Pacific dance, you can always go to the channel. The channel is accessed for free on the website. We have been doing that since 2015. It’s very comprehensive information about the chapters with beautiful photos as well.

Going forward, after we publish the channel, we will separate it into bite size information and post it on Facebook to make our Facebook more active. We are going to do that from January onward. We will be generating much more traffic flow and interest about coming together to look toward the future of dance.

You are new in the role of president of World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific. Can you share a little about your background and what you bring to this role?

I joined the World Dance Alliance in 2002 when I was one of the members of the Hong Kong Dance Alliance, which is the Hong Kong chapter under the World Dance Alliance. Since 2005, I have been at the Academy, which has played an important role in the World Dance Alliance by funding it and actively hosting several global festivals. As a young scholar in 2005, I was encouraged to present at the World Dance Alliance conference in Malaysia. I found that this is such a great network to reach scholars, artists, leaders, educators, and students. It has supported my own career development. I get to understand the global dance scene, in particular in the areas of dance education and training, which is my passion. Since 2005, I have helped the education and training network. World Dance Alliance has four pillars of direction, and education is one of them.

Through the education and training network, I was involved in the World Alliance of Arts Education, which is a global organization that includes visual arts, dance, music, and drama. In 2007 and 2008, we were trying to lobby the importance of dance. Dance is always last in the arts to receive support under the arts umbrella. In 2007, there was an agenda under UNESCO that was talking about arts education, and at the time, only music, theater, and visual arts were represented. We wanted to champion dance under the UNESCO arts framework, and the World Dance Alliance said, “We are here, someone needs to represent dance.” Therefore, we presented ourselves at UNESCO, and I was very much involved in that. Dance was accepted and invited to join the World Alliance for Arts Education. The World Alliance for Arts Education is a separate representative for UNESCO whenever they want to talk about the arts education framework.

Why is World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific important? What role does it play in the dance ecosystem that is otherwise not being met?

There are so many networks in the world to connect dancers, but I believe World Dance Alliance has a unique function to bring the layers of sectors and professionals together. That bridging is important. A lot of other networking organizations operate solely on the institutional level with scholarly conferences and so forth. World Dance Alliance plays an important role with young choreographers. At festivals, we bring keynote speakers to come and speak to young artists so they can see what the ecosystem is like after they train. There are many professional areas in dance where they can develop. We look at the welfare of the whole dance ecosystem. We try to encourage dialogue into looking at a much more global sense to develop a better ecosystem for dance. Through that support and development network, we have a strong voice to advocate and champion for dance.

Another important position for World Dance Alliance is to make dance more visible on the global stage. Unfortunately, dance is not visible because we have less funding. Dance is such a powerful tool for inclusivity and diversity. We address a lot of global issues through our making, our writing, and our study. We want to make a voice and be present. We want to be significant.

What is your vision for World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific going forward?

Going forward, how do we make a stronger voice and make the world better? Dance is a powerful tool to connect with the community. Because dance is nonverbal, we are the mediator. The world is lacking at this moment a human touch that makes the world better. Through dance, we will play an important role in making the world better.

My executive team is new and vibrant, but we don’t want to be too ambitious. For the next three years, we are looking at reforming the structure of World Dance Alliance and how our organization has a relationship with different chapters and global organizations. We want to build sustainable programs. It’s easy to do something big and then it all disappears. Finally, we want to develop new projects that can resonate in the future digital world. One of the questions I keep asking the team and myself is: Why join World Dance Alliance? They have to pay for membership, but they can get all the information free with one click on the internet. How do we build a strong community for the future through a digital platform?

More personally, we started 35 years ago while the Academy is celebrating its 40^th anniversary this academic year. In June 2025, we will organize a World Dance Alliance conference under the SWEAT Hong Kong International Dance Workshop Festival. We want to bring it back to Hong Kong after 35 years and take the opportunity to imagine the next 35 years of World Dance Alliance.

Any other thoughts?

A lot of Asian artists move to Europe and America to look for opportunities. How do we look at Asia? Asia is huge. We can’t have one aesthetic. Before I took over World Dance Alliance, I built another network for dance called the Asia Network for Dance (AND+). It was a different organization because it was looking at a much more professional level. At that time, we found that the dialogue was about aesthetic understanding. A lot of Asian performers are still framed in a Western and European framework. Through scholarship and research, we can flip it the other way around: How can we bring in the Asian aesthetic to look at our own work? How would the Asian aesthetic talk to the Western aesthetic and find mutual understanding and integration? That’s something we can work on for the next five to 10 years through the World Dance Alliance.

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To learn more, visit www.wda-ap.org.