Ryan McNamara: Score
— Hong Kong

Specially commissioned by Stephen and Yana Peel, award winning artist Ryan McNamara created a major new immersive art performance – called ‘SCORE’ – to be performed in Hong Kong. The event coincided with Art Basel-Hong Kong and Chai Wan Mei, the art and design open weekend in Hong Kong’s celebrated Chai Wan arts district. Working with local Hong Kong dancers, ‘SCORE’ continued McNamara’s exploration of choreography spectacle, and how we connect in the age of the internet.

Widely recognized as a leading artist of his generation, Ryan McNamara is known for blending different strands of dance, theater, pop culture and history in his work. Frequently situation-specific, McNamara’s practice engages histories of collaborative and participatory art, creating a social discourse and commenting on the role of “participation” in contemporary artistic production.

McNamara’s most recent large-scale production ‘MEƎM: A STORY BALLET ABOUT THE INTERNET,’ (A Performa Commission for the Performa 13 biennial) won the coveted Performa Malcolm McLaren award, given annually to ‘the artist who demonstrates the most innovative and thought-provoking performance during the biennial’. The performance featured more than 20 dancers who simultaneously performed unique choreography around a theater, as well as 15 “movers” who perpetually mobilized the performance landscape, blurring the lines between audience and performer without involving standard “participatory” practices. The experience constituted a large-scale choreographic exploration of the online world and was widely lauded by critics and audiences alike.

‘SCORE’ was McNamara’s first major new work since ‘MEƎM,’ and marked the first time the artist performed in Asia.

RYAN MCNAMARA (b. 1979, Phoenix, Arizona, based in Brooklyn, New York) has held performances and exhibitions at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York; The Watermill Performance Center, Southampton; The Whitney Museum, New York; MoMA P.S.1, New York; The Kitchen, New York; Collectorspace, Istanbul; Showroom Mama, Rotterdam; and in various other locations around the world. McNamara has participated in three Performa Performance Art Biennials in New York.