Ricky Hu Songwei

Born in Jiangxi, China, Ricky Hu Songwei trained at Shanghai Dance School, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts in Singapore and The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. He joined Hong Kong Ballet (HKB) as a Corps de Ballet member in 2008, was named Coryphée in 2015 and appointed Choreographer-in-Residence in 2019.

With HKB, Hu’s featured roles include Carabosse in Cynthia Harvey’s The Sleeping Beauty, Chinese Doll in Terence Kohler’s The Nutcracker, Von Rothbart in Yuri Ng’s Ballet Classics for Children: Swan Lake and Timur in Natalie Weir’s Turandot. He also performed in Stephen Jefferies’ The Nutcracker, Nina Ananiashvili’s Don Quixote, Anna-Marie Holmes' Le Corsaire, Pär Isberg’s Pinocchio, Rudi van Dantzig’s Romeo and Juliet, Ronald Hynd's Coppélia, Val Caniparoli's Lady of the Camellias, Nacho Duato’s Castrati, Edwaard Liang’s Sacred Thread and Fei Bo’s Shenren Chang.

His choreographic works with HKB include excerpts from Between the Emotion and the Response (2019); Demons (2017), Carmen (2017), Horn (2014) and White Lies (2012) with Yuh Egami; The Frog Prince – A Ballet Chinois (2013) as Associate Choreographer with Egami to Yuri Ng; Voicing (2011) and Twins (2010) for Choreographers’ Showcase of HKB. Hu has also choreographed Skyfall (2018) for Shanghai Dance Theatre; Mirage (2017) for China Shanghai International Arts Festival 2018; Look Up 2.0 (2016) and Look Up (2015) at the invitation of the National University of Singapore Arts Festival; Rush (2013) and Play with Abandon (2012) for Hong Kong Arts Festival; Blank Space (2013) at the invitation of Re:Dance Theatre in Singapore; and Lost in Memory (2013) for D. Lab Dance Shanghai.

Hu’s The Rite of Spring (2019), with Egami, won Outstanding Choreography at the 2020 Hong Kong Dance Awards, and HKB won Outstanding Ensemble Performance at the 2016 Hong Kong Dance Awards for Hu and Egami’s Bolero (2015). He received the Award for Young Artist (Dance) at the 2012 Hong Kong Arts Development Awards.