William Yong

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

He received his dance training at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. After graduation, he was twice the recipient of the HK Jockey Club Dance Fund scholarships to further his study in the U.K. at the London Contemporary Dance School. He was sent alone for secondment to study with Netherlands Dance Theatre 1 in the last year of MA study and 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 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 Dances and Matthew Bourne's AMP in the U.K.; Toronto Dance Theatre, CORPUS, Fila 13, Chimera Project in Canada and many other independent choreographers in both countries.

He is currently the artistic director of Zata Omm Dance Projects based in Toronto and has created many choreographic works for the company including the two latest full-length productions Frames and Eight Ways From Mara. His works have been shown at festivals like Winter City Festival, CanAsian Dance Festival, Dusk Dances, Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival, CorresponDANSE, fFIDA, etc. Currently, he is directing the Zata Omm Dance and Technology Research Laboratory funded by the Metcalf Foundation. William and Zata Omm have created two dance short films Sugar and Snails and To Fly or Fall, both directed by Kathi Prosser which were shown in cities and festivals around the world. William also performed in nine other dance films created by others.

William has been commissioned to choreograph for other dance companies such as The Little Pear Garden Collective, CORPUS, Canadian Children's Dance Theatre, Toronto Dance Theatre (Four at the Winch) and Pivotal Motion Dance Theatre. In the past, he has worked as a mentor for Jasmyn Fyffe Dance and as a rehearsal director for Chimera Project, AKA Dance and Piotr Biernat. As an educator, he choreographed for educational institutes like Ryerson University, School of Toronto Dance Theatre, Turning Point Dance Academy, Earl Haig Secondary School and Unionville High School. He also taught workshops and gave master technique classes for York University, McMaster University, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, L'école de danse de Québec, GMD, 509 Collective, Theatre Rusticle Gym, Toronto Dance Theatre, Matthew Bourne's AMP and New Adventures.

William is also an actor represented by Graham Talents Agency and appeared in TV and films such as Nikita, Being Erica, Adventure's Inc, Beautiful People, Eve, Just Business, etc. In live theatre work, he played the lead role as 'The Wolf' in Theatre Rusticle's stage production Peter and The Wolf. Recently he was the choreographer and music director for a play Red Snow for Aluna Theatre. William was profiled in two documentaries as a choreographer. One is an episode of the Bravo channel TV show Freedom, another is followed his creation Truce for Canadian Children's Dance Theatre . He was named Emerging Artist of the Month by Emerging Arts Professional. William is a double Dora Mavor Moore Award nominee. His latest nomination was for 'Outstanding New Choreography' for Zata Omm's Frames.