Mentor to film stars, veteran Hong Kong actress Olivia Yan talks about staging her first opera, Women Like Us
- In her time, Olivia Yan has co-founded a theatre company with Antony Wong and another of her own, and given acting lessons to Karena Lam
- She is directing a theatre production, is the subject of a documentary, and will soon make her opera directing debut
Olivia Yan Wing-pui seems to be everywhere all at once. On stage, she is directing a new production of Candace Chong Mui-ngam’s 2009 Murder in San Jose that begins a two-week run at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (APA) from April 30.
In the cinema, a documentary about her theatre pedagogy, featuring award-winning actress Karena Lam Ka-yan and other illustrious alumni of Yan’s “Anti-bad acting” classes, premiered in March to raise money for the Asian Cultural Council.
And then there’s her opera directorial debut. Women Like Us will be streamed online from May 14 as part of this year’s socially distanced Hong Kong Arts Festival.
“I call myself a ‘new artist’ now. Form no longer matters,” the 52-year-old Hong Kong-born all-rounder says.
The theatre has been Yan’s chief domain since she graduated from the APA in 1990 and spent a couple of years studying in the UK and France with physical theatre masters Philippe Gaulier, Monika Pagneux and David Glass.
