Yvonne Ng is a dancer, choreographer, presenter, producer, curator and arts educator. She is the Artistic Director and creative instigator behind tiger princess dance projects, which has been in operation since 1996. Yvonne founded the presentation series dance: made in canada / fait au canada Festival in 2001. Joined by festival co-directors Janelle Rainville and Jeff Morris, in 2011 Yvonne transitioned the series into a biennial festival that presents the work of contemporary choreographers from across Canada.
Of Peranakan Chinese descent, Yvonne was born and raised in Singapore and moved to Canada in the late ‘80’s where she completed her Honours BFA at York University. Ng began her training with Madam Goh Soo Khim at the Singapore Ballet Academy. Even before completing her BFA at York University, she had co-founded the dance company, Dance Allegro and was in demand in Toronto’s contemporary dance community. After a year in the Danny Grossman Dance Company, she left to work with choreographers such as Bill James (from 1992-2002); José Navas, Menaka Thakkar; Peter Chin; Dominique Dumais and Kevin O’Day (National Theatre Mannheim Ballet); Stephanie Skura; and Tedd Robinson, to name a few.
Her commissioned choreography and performance have earned her eight Dora Mavor Moore nominations and taken her to Australia, Italy, Ireland, Singapore, across Canada and the USA. Writers describe her work as ravishing, paradoxical, immediate and hard-edged, like painful memory. Yvonne is a certified Open Source Forms© (Stephanie Skura/U.S.A.), Senior Fitness, C-I Training™ and Ashtanga Yoga teacher. She also has her certification in Partners for Youth Empowerment Creative Facilitator (Level 1 & 2) and has trained in Dance for PD® (Parkinson’s disease). She has taught in the Dance Departments of Ryerson and York University in Canada, the Theatre Department at Juniata College, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. as well as Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (college) and LaSalle College of the Arts in Singapore and at the department of Drama and Speech Communications at University of Waterloo.
Yvonne is a recipient of the 2017 Muriel Sherrin Award, the 2016 Jacqueline Lemieux Prize, Soulpepper Community Artist Award, K.M. Hunter Artist Award, the New Pioneers Arts Award and the Chalmers Arts Fellowship. A multiple nominee, in 2000 she was honoured with a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance. In 2007, Ng received the Ontario Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts – New Talent Award; she was selected by fellow recipient and Canadian dance legend Peggy Baker. Ng was the Artistic Director of Series 8:08 from 1994 – 2015.