Helen Lai is one of Hong Kong‘s foremost choreographers. After training at the London School of Contemporary Dance. Lai worked as a Choreographer and Assistant Dance Director for Rediffusion Television in Hong Kong . Her choreography was featured at City Hall in 1977 and 1978. She joined City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) in 1979 and was Artistic Director from 1985 to 1989 and Resident Choreographer from 1991 to 2011.
Lai has choreographed for nearly all Hong Kong performing arts companies including Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, Hong Kong Dance Company, Hong Kong Ballet and DanceArt, as well as a number of film and musicals. Outside Hong Kong, she has choreographed for the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and Crossover Dance Company in Taipei, Contempodanza and Ballet Estudio in Mexico City. Guangdong Modern Dance Company and Singapore Dance Theatre.
Lai’s major works include Nine Song, The Rite of Spring, Invisible Cities, Loose Pages from a Woman’s Diary, Revolutionary Pekinese Opera (Millennium Mix), In the Beginning, Plaza X, The Tragedy of Mr O, The Comedy of K, Testimony, Herstory and Tales of Two Cities – Hong Kong ∙ Shanghai ∙Eileen Chang. Recent works include chamber opera Heart of Coral (Direction) and The Island Whispers…
In July 2000, Lai was awarded the Medal of Honor by the Hong Kong SAR Government. Other awards include Choreographer of the Year from the Hong Kong Artists’ Guild (1990) and the Badge of Honor from the Queen of the United Kingdom (1995). She received multiple Hong Kong Dance Alliance Dance Awards for her choreographies – In the Beginning (1999), Summer Solstice(2000) and Plaza X (2001) .In 2002,Lai was awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award by the Hong Kong Dance Alliance. In 2003 she received the Award for Arts Achievement (Dance) from the Arts Development Council for her contributions towards arts development in Hong Kong. She received an Honorary Fellowship from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in July 2004.
Lai received the Hong Kong Arts Development Awards 2015 – Award for Outstanding Contribution in Arts. At the 2016 Hong Kong Dance Awards, Lai’s latest production, Soledad, took awards for Outstanding Production, Outstanding Ensemble Performance, as well as Outstanding Choreography for her stunning work.