Some 12,000 students of a dance center stand to be hurt by renowned Willy Tsao Sing-yuen leaving the dance company he led for four decades.
Tsao's departure from City Contemporary Dance comes amid the continuing political and social unrest that is driving a wedge between artists and others in Hong Kong.
Besides leaving the company he founded in 1979 and served as artistic director since 1989, Tsao is so pessimistic about the SAR's future he is preparing to sell up and concentrate on the mainland.
His decision means CCDC Dance Centre, which teaches styles ranging from modern to jazz and ballet in a Tsao property in Wong Tai Sin, must move.
Some 12,000 people have been attending dance classes, but the center is expected to scale down drastically when it moves to a smaller home - likely in Tai Po - in about six months.
"There is no more room for cooperation," Tsao told The Standard from Beijing in addressing issues. "I'm not optimistic about the situation in Hong Kong. I'm prepared to sell my properties before Hong Kong is completely spent."
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Tsao went to the United States to read business administration at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, where he was introduced to modern dance.
He founded CCDC when he returned, and over the years he has also helped set up and lead dance groups in the mainland. They include the BeijingDance/LDTX, set up in 2005 as the first registered private professional contemporary dance company. Tsao is its artistic director.
It was in October that 64-year-old Tsao resigned from the CCDC board with effect from December 31.
Central to his reasons were that many local modern dancers, including those in CCDC, are "deep yellow" - hardcore supporters of the protest movement.
He disagreed with struggles against the mainland, Tsao said, but he did not want to use his position as artistic director to attack the ideas of others.
"Naturally I decided to leave," he said. "To be frank, I was relieved when I decided to resign at the Mid-Autumn Festival. CCDC is too big and people are bound to think differently.
"It's tiring to try and bind everyone together."
A fact of life in Hong Kong now is that people increasingly stay in echo chambers with those of similar political opinions.
And some shows fell apart as those in opposing groups disagreed with each other.
It was, Tsao said, a sad fact that political opinions affected artistic creativity.
Tsao set up the HKDance/FLSH group last month. It does not recruit on its own behalf but helps "patriotic dancers" get resources and venues for performances.
He has also since 2016 helped create an alliance of dance companies in mainland cities. Forty-two, including those from Hong Kong, have joined the alliance, and Tsao teaches across the network.
"Hong Kong is where I was born," Tsao said. "I belong to Hong Kong forever, and it's impossible for me to give it up. But from an objective point of view, especially when I understand the mainland perspective, I know protesters in Hong Kong won't be able to get concessions from the central government.
"There are only two possibilities. One is for the 'yellow' crowd to continue their struggle, and Hong Kong will go down with them. The second is they give up the struggle. The SAR will see large-scale prosecutions and one country, two systems will be nothing but in name."
While artists are concerned about limitations on freedom of expression in the mainland, Tsao said, creation is never entirely free of constraints. A person cannot perform naked on stage or discuss sensitive political topics, such as the independence of Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
"No matter where we are," Tsao added, "we have to understand the history and culture of a place. If you use Western or Hong Kong benchmarks to judge if there is freedom of creation in the mainland the answer is, of course, no."
