Biography
Born in 1988 in Taiwan, Ching-Ying Chien is a freelance artist graduated from the Department of Dance of National Taiwan University of Arts, who currently works with Akram Khan Company (UK) and Compagnie du Hanneton (FR).
She has worked with Akram Khan Company since “iTMOi” in 2013. Her performance in Until the Lions won the Outstanding Female Performance (Modern) at the 2016 National Dance Awards (UK). Dance critic Lyndsey Winship also praised her as “a woman of powerful but serene stillness, who shape-shifts between delicate, melting movements, stubborn decisiveness and contorted convulsing.” She also works as a rehearsal director and company repertoire workshop teacher at Akram Khan Company.
In 2020 she started working with James Thierrée and Compagnie de Hanneton in the creation of Mo’s and ROOM.
She has also collaborated with different choreographers and companies in Taiwan, such as Fang-Yi Sheu, Shu-Yi Chou and HORSE theatre. Besides theatre performance, she also worked as an art model and dancer for Guo-qiang Cai’s ‘Day and Night’, a gunpowder drawing. She was the dancer and choreographer for ‘Stranger’, a music video for hip-hop musician Plan B, and a few videos for the British electronic band The Chemical Brothers, both projects directed by Adam Smith. Together with Akram Khan, she co-created a duet for Can We Live with Robots, a TV documentary commissioned by Channel 4. Recently, she performed in The Silent Burn Project, a documentary celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Akram Khan company during the Covid pandemic.