{"id":772,"date":"2021-06-17T19:11:25","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T19:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/?p=772"},"modified":"2026-06-19T11:50:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T11:50:46","slug":"hybrid-nativism-and-postcolonial-subjectivity-in-the-work-of-hong-kong-choreographer-helen-lai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/hybrid-nativism-and-postcolonial-subjectivity-in-the-work-of-hong-kong-choreographer-helen-lai\/","title":{"rendered":"Hybrid Nativism and Postcolonial Subjectivity in the Work of Hong Kong Choreographer Helen Lai"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chen Ya-Ping<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

The article looks at two dances by Hong Kong choreographer Helen Lai, HerStory<\/font> and Tales of Two Cities<\/font>, within the theoretic framework of hybrid nativism and postcolonial subjectivity, which constitute the essence of Hong Kong identity and cultural vitality. Lai\u2019s choreographic strategies, through the tactics of intertexuality, polyphonic narrative lines and fluid subjectivities, vividly echo such postcolonial sensibility and cosmopolitan sophistication. Yet, the harsh political measures exercised by Beijing and the Hong Kong SAR government since the Anti-Extradition Movement in 2019 not only jeopardize the future of this cosmopolis of world finance, but would also mutilate its cultural vitality and artistic freedom.
Keywords:<\/strong> hybrid nativism, postcolonial subjectivity, Hong Kong contemporary dance, Helen Lai, City Contemporary Dance Company<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hybridized Nativism as Hong Kong Identity<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Chan Koon Chung (\u9673\u51a0\u4e2d), a renowned Hong Kong writer and cultural critic, stated in 2008 that \u201c\u2019Hongkongers\u2019 is [an identity that has been] invented, imagined and constructed; yet it is also a reality<\/em> that exists with material and historical meanings\u201d (37; my emphasis).[1]<\/sup><\/a> He identified a long list of cultural systems and subsystems coexistent in Hong Kong since the 1950s, ranging from Chinese orthodox and traditional cultures, to Western culture filtered through the New Culture Movement of the early-twentieth-century Republican China, to British colonial culture, to cosmopolitan multiculturalism as a result of its status as a world financial hub. He concluded with the system of \u201chybridized local culture\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hybridized local culture has surpassed the pluralistic coexistence of or superficial interaction among all the above cultures. It has become a new species, a new inheritance. Hybridized localization can be understood as an innovative process of production with Hong Kong as the subject, intermeshing all the above [\u2026] systems of cultures. (Ch. K. Chan, The Next<\/em> 40)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Chan, the most salient characteristic of \u201cHong Kong culture,\u201d created by Hongkongers since the 1970s, was \u201chybridized nativism\u201d (101). In other words, he emphasized, \u201cmultilayered and multilateral citizenship\u201d was a \u201creality\u201d rather than a \u201cproblem\u201d in this cosmopolis (The Next<\/em> 47). Chan points out that cultural studies scholars often resort to metaphors of \u201cnegativity\u201d to describe Hong Kong, a borderless city whose \u201cnativism\u201d has been defined and informed by its \u201chybrid cosmopolitanism\u201d (45). In other words, the identity and vitality of the city relies on its polyphonic tolerance. Chan once jokingly stated in 2003 that \u201c[i]f one day all the people started speaking unanimously in one voice . . . then we ought to find ways to get out of Hong Kong\u201d (My Generation<\/em> 43).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHybridized nativism\u201d and \u201ccosmopolitanism\u201d are two sides of one coin in this borderline city between the British and the Chinese empires. \u201cHybridized nativism\u201d faithfully reflects the historical development of Hong Kong. It has absorbed many waves of Chinese immigrants fleeing wars, poverty, or human catastrophes on the mainland in the past century, as well as tens of thousands of international laborers and professionals magnetized to this cosmopolis for job opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCosmopolitanism,\u201d celebrating differences and tolerance, has been upheld and embraced by many Hongkongers as a way of identifying and distinguishing themselves from mainland Chinese, especially after 1984 when the fate of Hong Kong to be returned to China was sealed by the Sino-British Joint Declaration.[2]<\/sup><\/a> The Tiananmen Incident in 1989 further heightened this sense of a distinguished identity. In fact, Hong Kong was the only Sinophone society where the Tiananmen massacre was memorialized annually on 4 June until 2020 while the memory and history of this bloody event have been completely wiped out in mainland China.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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