#DANCELESS complex 2026

Each partner organisation will select a promising local choreographer (a total of five, referred to as commissioned choreographers) to participate in the residency programme. At the same time, Unlock Dancing Plaza will also select has selected eight promising local performing arts practitioners to participate in the entire programme, pairing them with commissioned choreographers at different stages during their residencies in Shunde, Foshan, and Hong Kong to promote exchanges between local and overseas artists in the fields of art, creation, and culture.

The commissioned choreographers, along with participating artists, will be supported by Unlock for a two to three-week residency at Ergao Dance Production: The first week will involve each choreographer leading internal workshops to share their artistic practices with peers and begin their own creation and research; the second week will see the addition of eight Hong Kong artists/designers to continue the creation and research and to conduct sharing sessions.

Choreographers take turns staying at different local units to extend their creative work. Each local unit will also collaborate with connected platforms and institutions to design the framework for each residency based on local resources. Additionally, they will make corresponding arrangements to meet the needs of the choreography, allowing for activities that facilitate interaction with the local community, including talks, workshops, and performances. These activities may also involve learning the local language and crafts, sharing dance as a tool for in-depth and two-way exchanges, absorbing local culture, and enriching the artists' artistic practice. At the same time, there is adequate time and space to create, and during the exhibition, relevant local arts festivals and curators are invited to observe and discuss the possibilities and forms of future development and presentations.

At the week-long #DANCELESS complex 2026 festival, commissioned choreographers will present new works developed from their residency programmes. They will also conduct their own workshops and open rehearsals, extending from a single work to the development of choreographic thinking and shifting in focus at different points in the residency. This will allow the audience to understand the various aspects of the work's development process from a deeper context.

During 2026, the overseas units from the four regions will actively seek resources for preparing performances to tour in their respective cities or other locations. The overseas units involved in this collaboration all have extensive experience in planning and preparation and have long-term cooperative relationships with major venues, festivals, and organisers. Subsequently, they will also actively expand the tour network to develop the continuity of the works in the future.

Since this plan emphasizes the depth of commissioned works while also focusing on the residency process, the documentation and archiving of this process will be equally important. Therefore, this plan will invite scholar and independent curator Choi Sin-yi Emilie to be the editor-in-chief of this dance festival’s publication. Choreographers, collaborating artists, and cross-disciplinary writers will be invited to document and observe the process, viewing contemporary dance creation and integrated discourse from different angles and broadening the appreciation of performing arts works in terms of both width and depth. Each choreographer will need to document the entire residency programme in writing, images, or videos. At the same time, each local unit will invite observers to watch, ask questions, discuss, and write about the details of the workshops and creation process during the residency to preserve, disseminate, and extend the various states of discussion and process revealed in the creation of performing arts through another medium.