As a singer, writer and artist, Jessica Ng Sheen Fai is constantly searching for a more complete integration between her favoured artistic disciplines. Her work explores the journey to and from mythopoetic territory, while carefully avoiding the comfortable pitfalls of pedantry and cynicism. She has honed her theatre work under the dramaturg Keith Johnstone and poet Page Richards, who she continues to collaborate with.

In 2015 Jessica wrote and directed the critically acclaimed puppet play/opera Tallard and the Ladderbird, which was performed to music by Pieter Bezuidenhout and produced in Pretoria, South Africa by artist Nina Torr. She has also written and directed In/Between, a semi-staged song cycle for soprano and harp, which was featured in both the Aardklop Festival in South Africa and the World Harp Congress in Hong Kong. Jessica also co-directed the highly regarded production of Humperdinck’s opera Hansel und Gretel at the HKU Black Box Theatre in 2017, as well as Kuffy Ko’s debut play Weird Pool Party in 2018, which was also a HKU Black Box Theatre production. She is currently working on multiple projects with the HKU Black Box Theatre.

Jessica earned a double degree in English Literature and Classics (First Class Honours) from the University of Edinburgh and a Fine Arts Degree (painting, Dean’s Award) from Parsons The New School for Design, New York. Writing awards she has won include the Jane Helen McLeod Prize for Shakespeare while in Scotland, and first prize in the South China Morning Post Short Story Competition.

 

She is currently part of the HKU Guild for collaborative arts and is scheduled to teach a course in Creative Writing at the Diocesan Girls’ School this winter.