Dennis KENNEDY
- Dennis KENNEDY is Emeritus Professor and Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, where he held the Samuel Beckett Chair of Drama and Theatre until retirement. He is the author or editor of many award-winning books from Oxford and Cambridge university presses, including The Spectator and the Spectacle, Looking at Shakespeare, Foreign Shakespeare, Shakespeare in Asia (with Yong Li Lan), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, and The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance. He lectures and gives acting workshops around the world, and has held distinguished visiting professorships at universities from Berlin to Beijing. A member of the Royal Irish Academy and Academia Europaea, he has frequently worked as a playwright, director and dramaturg internationally, and his short stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines.
ONG Keng Sen
- ONG Keng Sen (Ph.D.) is the Artistic Director of TheatreWorks Singapore. He was awarded the Fukuoka Asian Arts and Culture Prize in 2010 for his creations in Asian contemporary performance. His productions have been presented at Lincoln Center New York City, Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Edinburgh International Festival, Festwochen Vienna, Holland Festival, Theater der Welt Berlin, Shakespeare Festival at Hamlet’s Castle Denmark, Roma Europa Festival, London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT), Cocoon Theater Tokyo, National Theater of Korea Seoul, Idans Festival Istanbul, Panorama Festival Rio de Janeiro and Adelaide Festival. Ong founded the Arts Network Asia, a micro-grant peer organization, and the international Curators Academy focused on the synergy between contexts and curation. His seminal work was the nomadic Flying Circus Project - traveling international artists through Asia, sharing their contexts amongst themselves and young people in the local sites. Ong is the Founding Festival Director of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) and directed four editions from 2014 to 2017. In 2019, he spent the year on a fellowship at the Freie University Berlin’s International Research Center, Interweaving Performance Cultures. Ong holds a doctorate of philosophy in Performance Studies, Tisch School of Arts, New York University.
Preti TANEJA
- Preti TANEJA teaches writing in prisons and is a Lecturer in Prose Fiction at Newcastle University. Her novel We That Are Young (Galley Beggar Press) translates Shakespeare's King Lear to contemporary India. It won the 2018 Desmond Elliot Prize for the UK's best debut of the year, and was listed for awards including the Folio Prize and Europe’s premier award for a work of world literature, the Prix Jan Michalski. It was a book of the year in The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Spectator, achieved starred reviews in Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly, and was a top 10 Book of the Decade in India's The Hindu newspaper. It has been translated around the world and is published in the USA by AA Knopf.
TANG Shu-wing
- Theatre director and drama educator Tang is hailed by the media as "one of the most talented theater directors in Hong Kong". After studying Law at the University of Hong Kong, Tang pursued theatre studies at the University of New Sorbonne in Paris. His interest in physical theatre, dance art, visual arts and spiritual practice have led him to a minimalist aesthetics driven by the body. His diverse cultural background and accomplishments give his works a unique blend of tradition and the contemporary. Tang established No Man's Land in 1997 (renamed Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio in 2011). He taught at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts from 2004 to 2011 where he served as a lecturer, Head of Directing and Playwriting and Dean of the School of Drama. He has trained many new actors using his superb training methods and rich creativity. In 2014, he set up the Professional Physical Theatre Youth Training Programme, which has become a brand for nurturing young performers. In 2019, Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio was selected by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council as an Eminent Arts Group, confirming its leading position in the industry. Tang has created more than 50 works, of which the best known, such as Titus Andronicus, Titus Andronicus 2.0, Macbeth, Detention and Thunderstorm, have been staged in many international arts festivals. His key written work has had a considerable impact on the Chinese theatre industry: Analysis and Reflections on the Theories of Acting of Meyerhold (2001), Titus Andronicus: approach to minimalist aesthetics and physical theatre (2014) and Writings from the Seine: my reflections on theatre (2016). Tang’s major awards include thrice winning Best Director in the Hong Kong Drama Awards, the Chief Executive’s Commendation for Community Service, Certificate of Commendation by the Secretary of the Home Affairs Bureau, Honorary Fellow of Lingnan University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Hong Kong Arts Centre, l’Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication and Excellence Award by the Undercloud Festival of Romania. In 2008 and 2013, he was awarded Arts Achievement and the Best Artist of the Year respectively by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. In 2020, he was awarded the Medal of Honour by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. He has served in a number of public bodies and continues to make substantial contributions to the Hong Kong cultural sector.
