Cover Lam Chun Wing as the Blue Bird in ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ ballet production in 2021 (Image: courtesy of Lam and Loboff)
Lam Chun Wing as the Blue Bird in ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ ballet production in 2021 (Image: courtesy of Lam and Loboff)
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Lam Chun Wing, the first Hong Kong dancer to be admitted to the Paris Opera Ballet, was back in our city with a show dedicated to his hero Rudolf Nureyev. Tatler finds out about his journey from being an aspiring Hong Kong ballet student to being an established dancer
In 2011, Lam Chun Wing made history as the first Hong Kong ballet dancer to be admitted to the Paris Opera Ballet, the oldest ballet company in the world.
Fourteen years later, Lam returned to Hong Kong with the production, Nureyev & Friends—A Ballet Gala Tribute, which took place last week at the Hong Kong Arts Festival. The show, which he curated and managed, was a tribute to Soviet-born Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993), the ballet legend and former director of the Paris Opera Ballet who cemented the role of male dancers in ballet and transformed the dance into an art form that pushes human capacity.
Along with Lam, this Hong Kong production brought together 11 star dancers, including the principal dancers of the Dutch National Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet and the Hamburg Ballet. Together they performed excerpts of some of Nureyev’s iconic dance pieces: Manfred, La Bayadère, Giselle, Don Juan, Cinderella, Le Corsaire, The Sleeping Beauty, La Sylphide, Swan Lake and Don Quixote.
Tatler caught up with Lam to find out more about the production, his experience in Paris and his vision for ballet’s future.
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Above Lam Chun Wing (Image: courtesy of Lam and Julien benhamou)
Lam Chun Wing (Image: courtesy of Lam and Julien benhamou)
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What inspired Nureyev & Friends—A Ballet Gala Tribute?
Most of the ballet schools in Hong Kong follow [the British] Royal Academy of Dance’s training and exam system. When I was a student here, we would sometimes watch Russian ballet, but we were not exposed to the Paris school of ballet. When I joined the Paris Opera Ballet, I came to realise that Nureyev has had a great influence on the Parisian style of ballet. I would like to present to the Hong Kong audience Nureyev’s legacy and the French school of dance.
Tell us about Nureyev’s legacy in the ballet world.
When Nureyev was appointed the director of the Paris Opera Ballet [in 1983], he introduced many famous Russian ballets such as Swan Lake and The Nutcracker to Paris and created his own version of them, which were technically much more difficult. Today, they are known as the French version of the originals, and all the students of the company, including myself, are trained in his versions.
Above Rudolf Nureyev (Image: courtesy of The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation)
Rudolf Nureyev (Image: courtesy of The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation)
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What’s unique about Nureyev’s choreography?
Nureyev didn’t like the grand techniques [of the Russians], which involved acrobatic moves, big jumps, a lot of turning and lifting of one’s partner. What’s challenging about Nureyev’s choreography is the details and the way he [arranged movements for] every note in the music. In other words, he put one step for each note of the score. He created this iconic technique in which we have to maximise the number of leg crossings to fill the music. As a whole, visually it looks very detailed and musical, but [for the dancer] it’s very difficult.
As for the movements, ballet is already unnatural [for the human body], but Nureyev made it even more unnatural. For example, when we are turning to the right, the momentum compels your body to continue to turn to the right, but then he would add a turn to the left. So you have to change your body coordination.
Nureyev also put a heavy emphasis on male characters. For instance, the original Russian version of the prince in Sleeping Beauty is easier: just two to three solos. For Nureyev, there are five or six, one of which lasts for eight minutes for the prince, which is very difficult. Most male solos only last for one minute.
Read more: New York City Ballet’s first Chinese principal dancer on defying racial and gender stereotypes
Above Rudolf Nureyev (Image: courtesy of The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation)
Rudolf Nureyev (Image: courtesy of The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation)
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How did you end up with the Paris Opera Ballet?
I was very passionate about ballet since taking it up at the age of seven. I hated secondary school because of the homework. There was no professional training for ballet students in Hong Kong during that time. The only way that could make my dream come true was to leave the city. The principal of Jean M Wong School [where I trained] said if I had to leave Hong Kong to be a ballet dancer, I should better go to the best school. In 2011, she got me an audition opportunity at the Paris Opera Ballet.
What was the experience of training in Paris Opera Ballet like?
This year is my 10th year at the Paris Opera Ballet, plus the four years at the school. So I’ve spent half of my life there now. When I first arrived, the transition was very tough. And less than five of us among 130 students [in my year] were from abroad. I’m also relatively short compared to the other male dancers, and that took me quite some time to get used to. I lost my confidence at one point and I was very scared. But I was a very good student. Slowly, I got more responsibilities, I got promoted twice, I now have solo parts in the ballets, so I’m more confident now.
Above Rudolf Nureyev in ‘Giselle’ (Image: courtesy of The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation)
Rudolf Nureyev in ‘Giselle’ (Image: courtesy of The Rudolf Nureyev Foundation)
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As a successful ballet dancer from Hong Kong, what changes do you hope to see in the industry here?
I wish that somebody had explained to me what a professional ballet dancer’s career is like, because it is a path that we choose when we are very young. If Hong Kong were to encourage ballet students to choose this path as their career, there must be vocational training from 11 to 13, instead of when they turn 18.
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Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
