Peer Encounters
Peer Encounters are informal networking opportunities hosted by local arts practitioners. Bringing together delegates with shared artistic interests, working methods, or professional experiences, these sessions offer a welcoming space to meet your peers and let conversations flow naturally.
No two sessions are alike. Hosts bring their own personalities and approaches, with formats ranging from casual chats and group sharing to roundtables, interactive games, and other more. This is your space to connect, share, and belong. Come and find your people.
Sessions
Making Room to Move: A Meet-up for Dance and Circus Practitioners
Every performer who relies on their physicality knows how to creatively work within – and expand – the limits of the body. How might we apply that same skill to catalysing innovation in our performing arts practices?
This roundtable invites practitioners of contemporary dance, circus, and other physically demanding artforms to brainstorm answers to this question. Come hear how your peers are navigating and stretching the outer limits of their disciplines, whether that’s through redefining performance spaces, transforming audiences into active co-creators, or fostering equitable, process-driven global collaborations beyond mere transactional touring.
Ideal for: Dancers, choreographers, circus performers, acrobats, performance artists, and dance producers and programmers
Andy Lo
Company Manager, TS Crew
Making Art for Everyone?: A Meet-up for Community and Family Arts Practitioners
How can the arts strengthen relationships across generations and communities? And how might we care for ourselves as we facilitate those encounters?
Come meet the people who, like you, are doing the sometimes difficult, often meaningful work of connecting communities through art. This is your space to share approaches to inclusive audience engagement, intergenerational practices, and collaborative working models. It’s also a rare opportunity to meet new friends in the field, recharge your practice, and reflect on better ways of working together!
Ideal for: Artists and producer of community, family, participatory, and socially engaged arts; festival programmers and curators; performing arts educators
Sheeta Ng
Independent Curator
Across the Score: A Musical Meet-up for Players of All Genres
Great collaborations often begin outside our comfort zones. Yet just as often, we musicians play it safe in our respective music scenes, missing out on the inspiring opportunities that come with getting to know musicians of other genres.
This meet-up is the remedy: a relaxed, open space for curious musical minds of all backgrounds to come together, compare notes, and sound out opportunities for cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural, or international co-creation.
Come with an open mind, and you just might leave with a partner for your next project!
Ideal for: Musicians, music producers, composers, conductors, and programmers
Louis Siu
Artistic Advisor, Toolbox Percussion
Fabienne Krause
Director, Classical:NEXT
Producers Are People Too: No Notes Tonight
Producers spend so much time facilitating conversations between everyone else that we sometimes forget to have our own. This is an opportunity to remind ourselves what our stakeholders so often forget: producers are people too – and we have feelings, personalities, stress to release, and incredible backstage stories to share. Come join your peers to laugh, cry, and commiserate over the details of our individual practices, including our favourite work tools, tried-and-true stress-relief outlets, and the unfiltered realities of life behind the scenes.
A relaxed session to close out the day; no note-taking required.
Ideal for: Producers and programmers of all disciplines
Orlean Lai
Independent Producer & Curator
Stéphane Noël
Producer & Curator
Questions Big and Small: A Meet-up for Theatre-makers
This meet-up has no big agenda. We're interested in only one thing: What’s keeping our fellow theatre-makers awake at night?
Nothing is too small and sometimes small thoughts can turn big or even too big – so just bring along what’s agitating or exciting you, and let the conversations flow from there. Your hosts are ready for whatever ideas are rattling around in your theatrical brain – be they personal or tiny, collective or global.
Come share, make new friends, and rest assured in the knowledge that you are not alone!
Ideal for: Actors, directors, producers, playwrights, multi-media and cross-disciplinary creators
Frieda Ng
Senior Programme and Outreach Manager, No Limits
Miu Law
Independent Curator
From Stage to Street: Public Performing Arts in Hong Kong and Beyond
Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world – a place where cultures converge, terrains vary, and regulations abound. If you can pull off an outdoor performance here, you’ve likely developed skills that travel well.
This meet-up is your space for making sense of the who, what, when, where, and whys of public performing arts in the city. Why do we perform outside the theatre? Who are our stakeholders? How do we make art happen in the city’s limited space?
Come for a lively discussion sure to spark new ideas for your own practice – wherever in the world you want to stage an outdoor work.
Ideal for: Artists, creators, programmers, and producers for outdoor and/or site-specific performing arts
Mimi Lam
Senior Producer of Performing Arts, Tai Kwun
Schedule
| Time | Session |
|---|---|
| 10 Oct (Sat), 13:00 - 13:45 | Peer Encounters-Dance & Circus Arts |
| 10 Oct (Sat), 14:30 - 15:15 | Peer Encounters-Family & Community Arts |
| 10 Oct (Sat), 16:00 - 16:45 | Peer Encounters-Music |
| 10 Oct (Sat), 17:30 - 18:15 | Peer Encounters-Producer |
| 12 Oct (Mon), 10:30 - 11:15 | Peer Encounters-Theatre & Multidisciplinary Arts |
| 12 Oct (Mon), 13:00 - 13:45 | Peer Encounters-Outdoor & Site-specific Arts |
Andy Lo
Andy Lo is the co-founder, project producer, and company manager of TS Crew, a premier contemporary dance and circus company based in Hong Kong. He is also the producer of Hong Kong Soul, a showcase featured at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. With TS Crew, Andy has spearheaded numerous indoor and outdoor productions, including the acclaimed dance and circus pieces No Dragon No Lion and No Sugar No Milk.
Since 2016, Andy has participated in major global platforms, such as the Yokohama Performing Arts Meeting (YPAM) in Japan, the Performing Arts Market in Seoul (PAMS) in South Korea, the Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting in Thailand, CINARS in Canada, and Tanzmesse in Germany. From 2023–2025, he was a Hong Kong Fellow for the International Society for Performing Arts (ISPA) Fellowship Programme, and he currently represents TS Crew as a member of the Circus Asia Network.
Beyond his work with TS Crew, Andy has served as the producer of the biannual festival Hong Kong Dance Exchange (H.D.X.) since its inception in 2018.
Sheeta Ng
Sheeta Ng is a Hong Kong–based curator, producer, educator, and arts development professional working across the performing arts, health and wellness, disability inclusion, mindfulness, and civic engagement sectors. She currently serves as Senior Arts Development Officer at a rehabilitation NGO, where she develops inclusive arts programmes that connect professional artistic practice with wellbeing and public engagement. Her work also extends to arts initiatives for cancer patients, their carers, and individuals with intellectual disabilities, which foster expression, connection, and collective voice through choral music.
Her cross-sector practice has been recognised internationally. She is a Fellow of the Global Arts in Medicine Fellowship (Cohort 9) and holds certifications in Entrepreneurial Leadership and Management, and Civic Engagement and Creative Practice. She is also Disability and Creative Engagement Curator for Flowtitude and has contributed to programmes in relation to the M+ Sigg Collection display, Inner Worlds.
Sheeta has collaborated with leading cultural institutions including Tai Kwun, West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Chi Association, and Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. Her work advocates accessibility, participation, and creating space for the connection, belonging, and healing that can come through art-making.
Louis Siu
Louis Siu is a Hong Kong-born artist–curator, artistic planner, and cultural executive whose practice spans arts innovation, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and cultural diplomacy. Siu is the founder of Toolbox Percussion, a Hong Kong music collective that pursues artistic experimentation and international exchange, where he provides strategic guidance on interdisciplinary and site-specific contemporary music projects.
Louis was a 2024–2025 Clore Leadership Fellow at the Southbank Centre in London, funded by the Hong Kong SAR Government. During his fellowship, he contributed to delivering Multitudes, a new arts festival powered by orchestral music, where he developed global collaborations under Artistic Director Mark Ball. He currently serves as International Partnerships Consultant for the Southbank Centre, building bridges between cultures and institutions worldwide.
Louis has previously served as a Teaching Artist with the San Francisco Symphony and as Principal Percussionist with the Macao Orchestra. His curatorial work includes A Double Listen: Yama no Oto at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Field in Japan, Classical:NEXT Hong Kong / Takeoff with the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and the Asia premiere of Ryoji Ikeda's 100 Cymbals at West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong.
Louis's boundary-pushing performance works and installation pieces blend music, visual art, and community engagement. His projects have appeared at internationally renowned venues like the Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), National Asian Culture Center (Gwangju, Korea), Adelaide Fringe Festival, Shipyard 1862 (Shanghai), Tianjin Juilliard School, MPavilion by Tadao Ando in Melbourne, and the Western Salt Water Service Reservoir in Hong Kong.
He holds a Bachelor of Music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, a Master's in Arts and Cultural Enterprise from Central Saint Martins (with distinction), and a diploma from Stanford Graduate School of Business's Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders. He teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. An Asian Cultural Council Fellow (2005), Siu is also an ISPA International Society for Performing Arts Fellow (2023–2025), currently serving on its Advancement Committee.
Fabienne Krause
Fabienne Krause is the director of Classical:NEXT an international platform for artists, managers, presenters, orchestras, labels, educators, press, media, and publishers working in classical and art music. Since the first edition in 2012, she has developed this networking event with a focus on the future of the field. Over the years, around 6,500 professionals from 3,500 companies from 60 countries have joined Classical:NEXT, making it the world’s largest international gathering and platform for classical and art music.
Fabienne has also spent 14 years on the team at the Berlin-based creative company Piranha Arts, where she served as Managing Director from 2022 to 2023. She holds a master's degree in musicology, philosophy, and sociology from Humboldt University of Berlin.
Orlean Lai
Based in Hong Kong, Orlean Lai is an independent curator and creative producer specialising in intermedia collaboration and the expansion of performative arts. She founded orleanlaiproject and No Discipline Limited to foster cross-genre practices among independent artists, focusing heavily on enhancing the performative potential of diverse media and blurring conventional artistic boundaries. In 2016, Orlean received the Asian Cultural Council (ACC) Fellowship.
She recently launched “Platform Undefined”, an experimental incubator that supports independent creators in pushing past their creative boundaries, expanding their performative practices, and engaging in peer-to-peer exchange. By building a supportive development ecosystem, the platform empowers artists to take creative risks, question existing methodologies, and map out unexplored artistic territories.
In parallel, Orlean is developing a Curator-in-Residence Programme for 2026–2027, inviting three international curators to Hong Kong. This initiative will pave the way for future exchange programmes between Hong Kong curators and overseas institutions, while bridging the local ecosystem with global contemporary practices.
Stéphane Noël
Stéphane Noël is a Swiss-born, Hong Kong-based producer and curator of contemporary performing arts, with extensive experience in music, cinema, visual arts, and multimedia. Noël served as director of Les Urbaines Festival in Lausanne (1997–1998) and as co-director of Festival Belluard Bollwerk International in Fribourg (2004–2007). From 2023 to 2025, Stéphanel was an artistic advisor at Azkuna Zentroa in Bilbao, focusing on community projects and co-curating the PROTOTIPOAK Biennial.
Stéphane’s advisory and curatorial capacities led him to join the artistic and editorial board of La Gaîté Lyrique in Paris and act as an advisor for European.Lab, a platform for cultural innovation organised by Arty Farty in Lyon during the Nuits Sonores Festival. He is also an advisor for IETM, an international network for contemporary performing arts based in Brussels.
Recently, Stéphane has continued producing and distributing the work of independent artists from Asia, Europe, and North America, alongside representing national cultural institutions in Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, and Taiwan at international producing platforms and networking events to facilitate connections with their international counterparts.
Mimi Lam
Mimi Lam is the Senior Producer of Performing Arts at Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts. At Tai Kwun, she produces and commissions a wide range of programming across music, theatre, dance, contemporary circus, and multi-disciplinary works. She has been a core member of the programming team sincethe institution’s opening in 2018.
Her accomplishments at Tai Kwun include assisting in the establishment of Hong Kong’s first contemporary circus festival (now in its ninth edition), producing numerous outdoor music festivals, hosting the Asian debuts of many internationally renowned artists, and leading Tai Kwun’s first international theatre commission, The Liar (2026), by Danish director Tue Biering. She has also facilitated multiple award-winning, cross-disciplinary, and site-specific commissions, such as Since When (2023) and the theatre trilogy Fugue of Two Shores (2025). As a speaker, she was invited to talk about public space at the 2025 FRESH Street International Conference for Outdoor Arts and to address the revitalisation of historical spaces at the 2025 CAPT Academy (Thailand).
Frieda Ng
Frieda Ng is a producer and Peng Chau islander with more than 12 years’ experience in programming cross-disciplinary collaborations in film, contemporary theatre, dance, and circus. She currently serves as Senior Programme and Outreach Manager of No Limits and previously served as producer of Tai Kwun - Centre for Heritage and Arts and lecturer for the Cultural Management programme at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2023. Frieda holds a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Hong Kong and an MA in History of Art from the University of Birmingham. In 2018, she received a scholarship from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council for her second master’s degree in Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship (Theatre) from Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Miu Law
Miu Law is an independent arts curator, theatre maker, and writer. She currently serves as the Resident Curator at On & On Theatre Workshop and is a founding member of the independent art collectives Herstory Polygon and Paperback Sketch.
With over a decade of experience in theatre, Miu specialises in documentary-based practices, interview-driven research, and participatory works involving non-professional performers. Her recent research and curatorial credits include Best Wishes (On & On Theatre Workshop, 2018), 100% Hong Kong (Rimini Protokoll x West Kowloon Cultural District x On & On Theatre Workshop, 2021), and Dormitory Town (Contenidos Superfluos x Tai Kwun, 2024). Her creative works as a writer and director include Regarding O (2017) and With Love, Medea’s Boys (2023–2024).
Her production portfolio spans theatre, exhibitions, and media arts. Recent theatre credits as a producer include On & On Theatre Workshop’s In a Perfect World (2025) and Flowing Warblers (2024–2025). In the field of sound art, she has been a long-term producer for artist Chung-tat Sham, executing several high-level spatial audio projects, such as the 32.1-channel ambisonic installation Transverse (2025) and the audiovisual installation experiment Back & Forth (2026).
