Huayi Dialogues with Directors’ Panel: A Tale of Three Cities – Constructing Contemporary Aesthetics

Roy Szeto is a Hong Kong-based screenwriter, director, actor and producer.

His directorial works have been nominated for Best Film at the 29th Tokyo International Film Festival (2016), awarded the inaugural Central Academy of Drama International Theatre “Academy Award” for Best Director, and received the Best Director Award at the 4th Chinese Theatre Awards. His productions have frequently been listed among the Top Ten Most Popular Productions at the Hong Kong Drama Awards, and he has been nominated seven times for Best Director.

Selected stage directing credits include Dear, Wu Xueyan; All Because of the Dragon Robe; Deling and Cixi; Sanshirō; Journey to the West; and The First Floor Under Heaven, among others.

Selected screenplay credits include A Chinese Ghost Story III, Swordsman II: The East Is Red, The Phantom Lover, and Old Master Q 2001.

Li Ren is a first-class actor and director at the National Theatre of China; founder of the Shan Hou Lian Bian Studio; and guest director at Xiantong Theatre. A graduate of the Beijing Film Academy (Acting and Directing), he is a new-generation artist proficient in writing, directing and performing. 

His works have received major governmental honours, including Outstanding Stage Production Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China, and have been twice selected for the Beijing Cultural Excellence Project. He has also received awards at the Chinese Theatre Awards, One Drama Awards and others. 

Directing credits include the plays The Magic Moment; Battle of Shangganling; Frankenstein; Deling and Cixi; The Grand Mansion Gate; and the acrobatic drama Calling 4921. 

Wang Chia-ming, founder and artistic director of Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group, is recognised for blending experimental performance styles with popular themes. Working closely with performers, he actively explores and challenges the possibilities of theatre. 

In 2018, his work Café Lumière was invited to the Tokyo Festival. In 2019, his work Dear Life was staged at the Festival d’Automne à Paris and later in 2023, at the Schaubühne Berlin’s Festival Internationale Neue Dramatik (FIND), making it the first contemporary Taiwanese theatrical work to be presented on both of these major European arts platforms. Most recently, his international work includes The Bathhouse of Honest Desires at the Tokyo Festival 2025.

Liu Xiaoyi is a Singapore-based artist, curator, educator, and cultural strategist. As Artistic Director of Emergency Stairs, he has been a leading voice in experimental theatre and intercultural artistic collaboration across Asia. He has initiated long-term platforms such as Southernmost, The Peripheral Experiment and Emergency Academy, which connect independent artists across regions and disciplines. His work has been presented internationally, and he has received major honours including the “Young Artist Award” and the “Global Outstanding Young Leader Award”. He currently serves as artist-in-residence in Jiangsu, Fellow (Artistic Exchange) at NAFA, University of the Arts Singapore, and Guest Professor at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen.