Hong Kong dancer Willy Tsao's first performance on the mainland was an event he will never forget.

The audience walked out.

Tsao's first trip to the mainland was in 1980, when the newly founded Hong Kong's City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC) was invited to Guangzhou to give a performance, which was open only to artistic circles.

He remembers the theater was packed of people, but most of them left before the end of the show. Later, a choreographer from the Guangdong Song and Dance Ensemble told Tsao that although the audience liked the troupe's work very much, they were afraid of the performance.

Articles leading up to the event claimed that modern dance was a "big poisonous weed" from the West, a phrase used during the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976).

However, Guangzhou, which was the front line of China's opening and reform policy, soon accepted modern dance.

For more than a quarter of century Tsao has become one of the most frequent visitors to the mainland. He regularly travels between Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Beijing in his capacity as artistic director of CCDC, Guangdong Modern Dance Company and Beijing LDTX Modern Dance Company.

"The development of my modern dance career in the Chinese mainland is very much in accordance with the 'opening and reform' of Chinese society," he says.

In 1987, a modern dance class was set up at the Guangdong Dance School, and Tsao was invited to be a teacher and consultant. When the Guangdong Modern Dance Company was founded in 1992, Tsao became the artistic director.

From 1999 to 2005, Tsao was the artistic director of Beijing Modern Dance Company. In 2005, he founded a new troupe, the LDTX Modern Dance Company in Beijing. Apart from leading his troupes to tour China and the world, Tsao also organized the annual Guangdong Modern Dance Festival in Guangzhou.

Twenty years ago, mainland journalists often asked Tsao "what was modern dance?" The most frequent question now is "how is the market of modern dance in China?"

He believes the change reflects improvement of people's understanding of modern dance.

For him, the 20 years of working in the mainland had not only promoted modern dance to the Chinese public, but also helped to finesse his own choreography.

"Had I stayed in Hong Kong these years, I would probably have stopped my career in modern dance. But every city in the mainland brings me new ideas," he says.

"Now I can look at Hong Kong with the mainland way of thinking, and at the same time look at the mainland from the viewpoint of Hong Kong."

Tsao also keeps a close eye on other contemporary Chinese artists. He supported Chinese's "sixth-generation" film director Zhang Yuan to shoot Beijing Bastard in 1993. In 1994, he choreographed a modern dance work titled China Wind, China Fire, using Chinese rock'n'roll music. In 2001, he invited Beijing's rock musician Cui Jian to compose and perform live music for CCDC's Show Your Colors in Hong Kong.

"The most important thing for me is not the box office, but to promote through our work a modern consciousness, which means respect for individuality and creativity, as well as a concern for our time," he says.

Tsao has invested much of his own money on modern dance, especially in the newly formed Beijing LDTX Modern Dance Company.

"Establishing a modern dance company is more fulfilling for me than buying cars and houses," he says. "I'm happy to see talented modern dancers develop their art."

Tsao says he doesn't have a practical goal in his career in the mainland, and he would go wherever he is needed.

"I'm from Hong Kong, but I choreograph in the context of Chinese culture and history," he says. "I hope we can create something new on the basis of that and leave the audience some space for imagination."

(China Daily July 2, 2007)