Sangjijia, dancer/choreographer of Tibetan ethnic group (Photo provided to China Daily)
He also lived in Frankfurt while working at the Forsythe Company of Germany before returning to the Chinese mainland in 2007.
When he started work on Fragile Beauty he did not know where to begin, because lots of things have changed in Hong Kong over the years and the city is no longer like what he remembered.
So he asked the City Contemporary Dance Company dancers, who are all native Hong Kongers, to join the choreography process.
"One of the dancers told me that his grandfather was a construction worker, who made less than HK$1 per day. So, whenever he walked past an old building, he couldn't help wondering if his grandfather had once worked on it," says Sangjijia. "Their stories inspired me. The work (Fragile Beauty) is about connections between the people and the city."
"The stories are as glorious as the fireworks in the sky, which vanish at the height of their magnificence. What is left is only the memory," he says.
Musician Dickson Dee, who has collaborated with Sangjijia on his earlier works, including Layer Code and As if to Nothing, has composed music for this new work.
Along with Sangjijia, Dee collected typical sounds of Hong Kong, such as classical Cantonese pop songs, people's voices and Sangjijia's favorite sound, Stephen Chow's laughter, and used them in the work.
