Digital Programme: HOME X

Don’t Believe in Style (dbis), is an arts-tech company in Hong Kong. dbis designs and delivers the future of experience through the creative application of extended reality, immersive technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning and 5G. A new generation of digital-native audiences has emerged. Needs and preferences have changed. Emerging technologies and the digitalization of experience have created new expectations and opportunities. As a result, brands are committed to working with a wider range of experience formats and technologies. Recent advances in Metaverse, Web 3.0, and immersive technology now enable brands to connect with customers in new ways. For more than 17 years, dbis has supported clients as a trusted advisor to help them navigate the broadening mix of extended reality solutions.

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AN-TING 安婷
Creator, director and composer

An-Ting 安婷 is a concert pianist, composer, theatre director and currently the Artistic Director of Kakilang (formerly Chinese Arts Now) which is a National Portfolio Organisation producing contemporary Southeast and East Asian performing arts in the UK. As a director/composer work includes include Every Dollar is a Soldier/With Money You’re a Dragon for the Horizon Showcase (Digital Culture Award-storytelling); Augmented Chinatown 2.0, an app for AR, music and drama, and Lao Can Impression at Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room; Coalesce at King’s Place; and Bats and Beats for Soundstate Festival and Shanghai tour. As a director /producer: Citizens of Nowhere? for Duddell’s and China Changing Festival; and LSO Eclectica for LSO St Luke’s. Her background is a unique mix of science and art, including a degree in Chemistry from National Taiwan University and a MMus and PhD in piano performance from the Royal Academy of Music. In 2012, she founded Concert Theatre which pioneered a new hybrid genre mixing music and theatre. Productions include Kiss of the Earth on UK tour in 2015 and The Tenant at the National Portrait Gallery in 2017. 'An-Ting 安婷's music can be listened to via all digital platforms.

IAN GALLAGHER
Creator and creative technologist 
Ian Gallagher studied Theoretical Physics at Edinburgh before completing a PhD in Complex Systems at Manchester University. He was heavily involved in the music scene in Manchester, as a sound engineer and gig promoter as well as playing on stage with artists including Daniel Johnson and Neva Dinova. He helped found a digital agency – OH Digital – before moving to London and becoming an independent app developer and entrepreneur. He has helped to create high-profile apps for Christie’s, Formula One and the Olympics among many others, and co-founded a startup, Myriada, focused on the harnessing of collective intelligence. He has a keen interest in the exploration of consciousness and the emergence of collective thought and behaviour. Most recently he helped to create Every Dollar is a Soldier/With Money You’re a Dragon for Kakilang at Two Temple Place that won Arts Council England’s Digital Culture Award (storytelling).

DONALD SHEK
Creator and 3D designer
Donald Shek is an artist based in London. He incorporates architectural elements of London into his artwork and mixes a variety of mediums including screen printing, drawing and etching. More recently the architectural landscapes have developed into augmented reality spaces that straddle digital and physical spaces. He was commissioned by Kakilang on Augmented Chinatown, an augmented reality tour in London’s Chinatown that explored ideas of identity, cultural symbolism and mythology. Following a residency at ESEA Contemporary (formerly CFCCA) in Manchester and a large production with Kakilang, Donald Shek worked on Augmented Chinatown 2.0 which built upon the previous commission, combining immersive AR worlds with music and drama to explore the layered history of London’s Chinatown.

HENRY LAM
Experience designer
Henry Lam is a creator across multiple disciplines, including motion graphics, show/theatre design, experience and interactive design. With years of experience in art and design and his work usually involving cross-field collaboration, he is fluent in transforming ideas into meaningful visual storytelling and breathing artistic insight into all kinds of experiences.

CHRISTINE TING-HUAN 挺歡 URQUHART
Costume Designer
Christine Ting-Huan 挺歡 Urquhart is a former fine art painter and sculptor working in live performance as a set and costume designer and as an art director / production designer for film. She has a continued interest in artist digital commissions centred around discovering new forms of performance, somewhere between film, gaming and exhibition. Her heritage is Taiwanese British which deeply roots her collaborations in the underrepresented and displaced. She spent seven years designing internationally (around Europe, Bulgaria, New Zealand, Australia, Canada) and is currently based in Glasgow. She studied Fine Art at Farnham Art College and Cardiff Metropolitan University, and  Theatre Design at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Her work questions viewpoints, histories and narrative structure through form as a design-driven interrogation, the body as a political statement and getting audiences out of black boxes to be witnesses to a different kind of event.

SI RAWLINSON
Choreographer and dancer
Si Rawlinson is a hip-hop choreographer and theatre-maker of British and Hong Kong Chinese heritage. He is a Resident Artist at Curve Theatre, and Artistic Director of Wayward Thread.  His work has been performed at leading venues such as Sadler’s Wells, Royal Festival Hall and The Place, among many others, and he has worked with acclaimed artists including Gary Clarke, Alesandra Seutin and Requardt & Rosenberg. His company Wayward Thread is rooted in hip hop dance, using physical theatre and text to explore compassion, identity and our relationship with a rapidly changing world. Most recently he performed as a puppeteer in the Royal Shakespeare Company's award-winning stage adaptation of My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican, and his next show Saving Face will premiere at The Place at the end of June.

SUEN NAM
Choreographer and dancer 
Suen Nam graduated from the HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity and the Hong Kong Design Institute, majoring in music and creative media. He is a member of the hip-hop group Flowrulerz. Suen Nam has worked in the arts industry for several years, participating in dance, theatre and music performance and composing. He has worked with Hong Kong artists including Fong Ho-Man, EKids and Andy So; has been a choreographer for various universities and dance associations and a dancer and actor on 'pole' as well as the movement director of 100Most’s and Thoughtful Theatre’s The Fading Spark and Unspoken, and a dancer at the Hong Kong Art Festival in 2019 and 2021. Suen Nam has also composed for the musicals Between You & Me and Bent, and has published his other musical work online.

COLETTE WING WING LAM
Soprano
Hong Kong-born soprano Colette Lam has interpreted a wide range of roles throughout Asia and Europe. These include Adina in L’elisir d’amore, Gilda in Rigoletto, Juliet in Roméo et Juliette, Micäela in Carmen, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, and Violetta in La traviata. She has performed in productions by Opera Hong Kong and Musica Viva in Hong Kong; Brent Opera in London; and Opera Lyrica in Oxford. She has also appeared as soloist in venues including: Colston Hall in Bristol; Esplanade in Singapore; Millennium Centre in Cardiff; Sadler’s Wells, Westminster Abbey and Banqueting House in London; the Elena Obraztsova Cultural Centre in St Petersburg; and Abay Opera House in Almaty. Colette Lam obtained a BMus (Hons) degree at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and completed her Master of Music in Voice at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

MIA FOO
Actor-gamer and introductory video
Mia Foo works primarily as an actor, but also as a live music tour promoter bringing artists of East and Southeast Asian heritage on their European tours. She has a BSc in Design. Since her postgraduate studies at the Drama Studio she has workshopped a new play with the National Theatre Studio; performed with Old Vic New Voices in the play Ages; and her most recent stage work is the English language premiere of Lesia Ukrainka's Cassandra, which will tour in March 2023. Recent screen work includes the feature film The Persian Version, winner of 2023 Sundance People's Choice Award; The Crown season 5; and Emmerdale. More recently, as a writer, her work includes the action-rom-com short film Speed Dating. She will feature as the voice and mocap for the lead and other characters in the upcoming release of Baldur's Gate III. Mia Foo really likes playing video games. 

DANIEL YORK LOH
Dramaturg
Daniel York Loh is a writer, filmmaker, performer and musician. His first stage-play, The Fu Manchu Complex was produced at Ovalhouse. His second, Forgotten 遗忘, played at Arcola and Plymouth Theatre Royal in 2018. He is one of 21 writers of colour featured in the best-selling award-winning essay collection The Good Immigrant. His short films include: Mercutio’s Dreaming: The Killing of a Chinese Actor, Dream of Emerald Hill, Hall of Mirrors and most recently Laid, which won Best Science-Fiction Film at Cannes Shorts. His recent work for performance includes Invisible Harmony 无形的和谐 for Papergang Theatre/Kakilang at the Southbank Centre; Living Newspaper Edition 1 at the Royal Court; Silent Disco in the Sky for Northern Stage; Every Dollar is a Soldier/With Money You’re a Dragon for Kakilang at Two Temple Place (in which he also performed) and Asian Exclusion Act which he wrote and directed for MFA International students at East 15 Acting School. As an actor Daniel York Loh has appeared at the Royal Court, RSC, National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, in Singapore, China, Europe and the USA, as well as in the films Rogue Trader, The Beach and Scarborough. With Jennifer Lim he is co-founder of Moongate Productions and is currently co-curating the Moongate Mix Salon Sessions which include We R Not Virus 2, the commissioning of five writers funded by Arts Council England.

LISA LI
BSL Interpreter
Lisa Li is the eldest daughter of immigrant parents from Hong Kong. She grew up in Fife (Scotland) and graduated from Heriot-Watt University's MA(Hons) Interpreting, Translation and Applied Language Studies course in 2016. She has been interpreting between British Sign Language (BSL) and English ever since. She works in a variety of sectors, including education, health, medical, social work, humanist celebrations, theatre, performance and arts, among others. She is a member of ASLI, IOCN, SCOSLI and dual-registered with NRCPD and SRLPDC. She can be found on Twitter: @LisaLiBSL