Introduction

William Yong’s Biography - Artistic Director and Choreographer of Zata Omm

William Yong is currently the artistic director and founder of Zata Omm (Zen And The Actualization Of Modern Movement) and W Zento Production based in Toronto. William has spent last nineteen years breaking new ground collaborating with artists, scientists and engineers in bold and innovative ways. In particular Zata Omm has become a site for research under his tenure, focussing on the integration of dance, technology and broader culture in order to re-imagine performances for our technological age. W Zento Production is a film and video production house found its way to be in response to the demand for the vibrant short films industries. A major dance critic hails his work “…It shows Yong going where no Canadian choreographer before him has gone before…so much originality…“. He has created many choreographic works for the company including several full-length productions including Steer. Critics hailed Steer as ”…spell-binding, disturbing, fascinating, provocative, and profound theatre. (Lighting and Sound America Magazine). “Otherworldly, impossibly beautiful. These are unknown compounds creating a new universe.” (Blue Ceiling Dance).

William Yong’s first passion was music. When he was young, he was a member of the Hong Kong Children’s Choir and toured numerous festivals and concerts. Then he went on to become the lead-singer and songwriter of a music band Fundamental and a recording artist/group with BMG Asia Pacific Records and Current Records. Fundamental received two prestigious awards: Carlsberg Pop Music Festival band competition 1st runner up and a bronze prize of Hong Kong Commercial Radio’s Best New Artist Award.

He received his dance and drama training at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts while he was a singer. After graduation, he was twice the recipient of the HK Jockey Club Dance Fund scholarships. He gave up his singing career and chose to further his dance study in the U.K. at the London Contemporary Dance School. He was sent alone for placement to study with Netherlands Dance Theatre 1 in the last year of MA study, followed by a scholarship to be a member of the LCDS-4D performance group where he worked with several distinguished British choreographers including Richard Alston, Laurie Booth, Nigel Charnock, and Henri Oguike. He completed his Master’s Degree in dance with distinction validated by and graduated at University of Kent in Canterbury. Past companies he worked for as a dancer include: Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance and Matthew Bourne’s Adventures In Motion Pictures in the U.K.; Toronto Dance Theatre, CORPUS, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Côté Danse, Lina Cruz/Fila 13, Blue Ceiling Dance, Chimera Project in Canada and many other independent choreographers in both countries.

William’s professional dance and theatre career spans more than thirty years since starting with Random Dance in 1994. He has performed in 75 cities within 15 countries. He presented his first choreography for paying audiences in a production in Freiburg, Germany in 1993 and now he has created over 150 dance, theatre and film works world-wide.

William’s choreographic works have been presented by major dance presenters such as Toronto’s DanceWorks, Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage & NextStep and Tiger Princess Dance, and Montreal’s Tangente Laboratoire Mouvements Contemporains and Montréal Arts Interculturels (MAI). His works have been shown at festivals and major event such as ÉCLATS-Vitrine Festival Canasian and Festival Accès Asie in Montreal, CorresponDANSE in Quebec City, Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival, Toronto’s World Stage, Luminato Festival, Fall For Dance North, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Winter City Festival, dance:made in canada/fait au canada, CanAsian Dance Festival, Dance Ontario Weekend, Dusk Dances, Old & Young and Reckless Together, fFIDA, etc.

From 2010 to 2013, he directed the Zata Omm Dance and Technology Research Laboratory funded by the George Cedric Metcalf Foundation. These research aimed to explore the artistic climate and seeks profound relationships between the latest technology and movement as a strategic analysis initiative. William conducted seven unique research residencies with technological artists such as Ying Gao (Interactive garment designer) and Asethetec (Interactive technology studio). Because of William’s unique creative vision and ability to produce large-scale technologically intensive works, he was invited to be the guest speaker at Staging Sustainability International Conference, DigiFest’s Future 15 Talk, Canadian Dance Assembly’s ‘Technological Innovation’ workshop, Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, Dancers’ Transition Resource Centre’s ‘On The Move’ conferences, Dance Umbrella of Ontario, Theatre School of Ryerson University, Lululemon Athletica’s Career Talk and Toronto District School Board Seminar.

William has been commissioned to choreograph for other dance companies such as National Ballet of Canada (Season 2023-2024), Echo Chamber Toronto, Little Pear Garden Company, CORPUS, Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, Toronto Dance Theatre (Four at the Winch), Pivotal Motion Dance Theatre and National Ballet of Canada’s gala fundraiser ‘Mad Hot Ballet: Lost in Venice‘. In the past, William was appointed as the 2024 International Dance Day Ontario Ambassador invited by Dance Ontario and Dance Umbrella of Ontario. He has worked as a performance coach for Olympian Ice-dancing figure skater Paul Poirier and renowned composer/pianist Njo Kong Kie, as a mentor for Robert Abubo at CanAsian Festival, Samyuktha Sharath (Infinite Arts Projects), Gadfly, Jasmyn Fyffe Dance, as a technological consultant for Loretta Faveri, as an artistic consultant to Malar Janagan, and as a rehearsal director for Chimera Project, AKA Dance and Piotr Biernat. He was also the artistic advisory committee for Fall For Dance North International Presenters Program (IPP) in 2018. As an educator, he choreographed for educational institutes like Ryerson University, George Brown College, School of Toronto Dance Theatre, L’école de danse de Québec, Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts, Turning Point Dance Academy, Earl Haig Secondary School and Unionville High School. He also taught master choreographic workshops and gave master technique classes for World Stage, Fall For Dance North, Series 808, York University, McMaster University, National Ballet of Canada’s In Studio, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Lester B. Pearson School for the Arts, Earl Haig Secondary School, GMD, 509 Collective, Theatre Rusticle Summer Intensive, Toronto Dance Theatre, Little Pear Garden Collective, Emerging Artists Intensive, Matthew Bourne’s AMP and New Adventures.

William and Zata Omm have produced three dance short films: Sugar and Snails and To Fly or Fall both directed by Kathi Prosser, Eden Planted directed by Lisa Mann, all of which were shown in cities and festivals around the world. William also performed in ten other dance films created by others. William is also an actor appeared in TV and films such as *The Expanse*, *Nikita, Being Erica, Kim’s Convenience, Adventure’s Inc, Beautiful People, Eve, Just Business,* etc. William has choreographed for and performed in music videos for The Used’s Rise Up Light, The Nexus and Over And Over Again, Mother Mother’s Modern Love, Apocalytica’s Cold Blood and Adaline’s *Part Of You*.

William was profiled in three documentaries as a choreographer. One was an episode of the Bravo channel TV show Freedom, another one was documenting him as resident guest choreographer and the creation of Truce for Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre, and the third one documenting the making of *vox:lumen* for World Stage 2015.

In live theatre work, he played the lead role of ‘The Wolf’ in Peter and The Wolf and played ‘The Hero’ in Dinner at Seven-Thirty for Theatre Rusticle’s stage productions. He also performed in Theatre Passe Muraille/lemonTree creations’ production TOKA and Against The Grain Theatre’s *Kopernikus*. He was the director, scenic designer, music and movement director for three plays Comfort, The Monkey Queen and Carried by the River by Diana Tso for Red Snow Collective. He was the music and movement directors for their first production Red Snow. He also assisting-directed and choreographed for lemonTree creations’ workshop versions of The Blood Cycle. He recently choreographed for Canadian Stage’s production How To fail As A Popstar directed by Brendan Healy.

For William’s theatre directorial debut Comfort in 2016, he was nominated for MyTheatre Awards’ ‘Outstanding Direction’ by My Entertainment World. This play he directed also earned two more nominations for ‘Outstanding Supporting Actor’ and ‘Outstanding Supporting Actress’ from the same award in addition to another nomination for a Dora Mavor Moore Awards ‘Outstanding Composition’.

William and his works received ten Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations. His latest Dora Awards nominations was for Zata Omm’s Eden Planted including Outstanding Production, Outstanding Original Choreography and Outstanding Achievement in Design. William was also nominated for the Young Centre Performing Arts Multidisciplinary Dance Artists Award 2012 and a three-timed finalist of K.M. Hunter Artists Award in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

William was awarded as the winner of 2013 “I love dance/J’aime la danse” Award for Innovation presented by Canadian Dance Assembly. William Yong’s solo Steer and a shared, double-billed production in a programming of ‘Dance: Made in Canada/Fait au Canada’ Festival won the top honour from NOW magazine as Number One in their top five dance shows in 2013 for the year in review by Kathleen Smith: ’…rigorous, virtuosic solos looking in completely different directions…Stunning.’ In addition, the ensemble, of which William was a member, in Against The Grain Theatre’s opera production Kopernikus were the winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award 2019 for ‘Outstanding Performance of an Ensemble’ in the Opera Division.

As a film director, William has directed over 37 films and is an award-winning cinematographer at Venice Shorts Film Awards and Cine Paris Film Festival for Best Cinematography for two short films he directed, filmed and edited. His short films were also the winners of ‘Award of Excellence’ at the One-Reeler Short Film Festival in Los Angeles; Best Short Short at Palm Springs Movie Awards; Best Experimental Short at Barcelona Indie Awards, Madrid Arthouse Film Festival and Nashville Independent Filmmakers Festival; and Best Experimental Film at San Jose Independent Film Festival.

William’s commitment to pushing boundaries led to historic recognition: the first Asian choreographer commissioned for the National Ballet of Canada’s season 2023 to 2024. His ballet UtopiVerse was premiered in March 2024 at the main stage of the prestigious Toronto Four Seasons Centre for Performing Arts.

His major forthcoming projects include directing his third theatre play Carried By The River for Red Snow Collective.