Tony Yap
Dancer and artistic director.
Born
in Malaysia, Yap is an accomplished dancer, director, choreographer and
visual artist. Tony was one of the principle performers with IRAA Theatre
(1989 - 1996) and has worked extensively in Australia and overseas
including Agamemnon Festival Colline Torinese, Italy, and The
Trojan Woman, Vienna International Art Festival. As the founding Artistic
director of Mixed Company (now Tony Yap Company) in 1993, he has make a
commitment to the exploration and creation of an individual dance theatre
language that is informed by psycho-physical research, Asian shamanistic
trance dance, Butoh, Voice and Visual design. For Mixed Company Tony has
directed Icarus, Print of a Pulse, Narcissus' Dream
and St. Sebastian. Narcissus' Dream & Icarus were
both nominated in the Best Innovation New Form category for the Melbourne
Green Room Awards. Tony hs collaborated with many companies and individual
in Australia, Indonesia, Austria, Italy, France, Malaysia, Denmark, China,
South Korea and Japan. he danced in an international collaborative work in
The Silence of the Forest with Company Lian in Paris and The
Night Gardener in Marseille for the Mai-diteranee Festival, France.
Tony has received numerous nominations and awards including his solo work The
Decay of the Angel which won him a Green Room Award for Best Male
Dancer. Tony received an AsiaLink Residential grant to work in Inonesia in
2005. He returned to his lace of birth to research into the Malaysian
shamanistic trance practised for E1-Evocation of a Lost Boy.
Tony collaborated on a project at Gwanju, South Korea as part of the prestigious
LACM (Little Asia Creators Meeting) and Asia Artplex Performing Arts
Collaboration Pilot Project. LACM is a cross-cultural, cross-medium
collaborative initiative. The result was RIAU, inspired by the
plight of the nomadic sea people of the Riau Islands, Indonesia. This year
Tony received a two-year Dance fellowship from the Australia Council for
the Arts to develop and produce a major solo work, The Buddha Body
Series.
Website: www.tonyyapcompany.com