INTERVIEW: A Digital Pint with… Eugene Ma on Gen Z Burnout, Dreaming and Dance Mats

Hong Kong theatre director Eugene Ma’s EdFringe offering this year Dance Dance Involution sees young people navigate the chaos of hustle and quiet quitting. We’re invited to watch as these dreamers wrestle with their voices, their pasts and the unpredictable journey ahead. We caught up with Eugene for a pixelated pint to find out more about the show.

You can catch Dance Dance Involution from August 1st – 9th and again 11th – 19th at theSpace @ Niddry Street from 12:00 (40 mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.

Kat: Hi Eugene! Tell us about yourself and the shows creation!

Eugene: Eugene here, the director! I’ve been a Hong Kong-grown theatre director and acting teacher based in North America for almost two decades and was a former Prof at Columbia’s MFA Acting Program. I was teaching and exploring my roots in HK during the pandemic for two years, and found that while I’ve been working more on spectacles like Wild the Musical, which toured to the Rose Theater, and my most recent opera adaptation of Die Fledermaus with Hong Kong Grand Opera, I wanted to work on a more hand-crafted and intimate project with humans I cared about. Being curious as an educator about the GEN Z stereotypes and wanting to understand the next wave of artists from Hong Kong, as I officially repatriated back to Hong Kong last year, DANCE DANCE INVOLUTION emerged!

Kat: What can you tell us about the other creatives behind and show and how they informed and contributed to the process?

Eugene: As I had just returned to Hong Kong again a year ago, wanting to expand beyond hired directing projects and institutional teaching for a pang of inspiration, the opportunity to join Asia Base to come to Edinburgh opened up. It was the perfect scale and occasion for my new company Deliberate Collision, as a newly HK-based international organization, to build this show specifically for a UK premiere and debut, a fully English language project that is also completely in the voice of three youthful artists in and of Hong Kong. It encompasses our third culture motto so fully, it’s unbelievable.  

I was fortunate to have taught quite a bit in Hong Kong during the pandemic, and when I returned, I attended a showcase performance. I was completely blown away by the chemistry between the three original devisors — Dorothy Chow, Ashley So, and Sheena Chan. Their reciprocity was intoxicating, and I knew immediately that I wanted to develop something with them.

We began with a lot of creative energy, but we were also wrestling with a kind of internalized stuckness — many thoughts and ideas were self-censored. That tension became part of the piece. The real turning point came when Sheena brought in an article about the “lying flat” and “involution” movements in response to over-competition and burnout. That gave us a center.

As Sheena began rising in the industry — starring in both major films and musicals (ironically, a reflection of the involution she introduced) — we were lucky to bring in Kathleen Wong. Her background in traditional Hong Kong local schooling, combined with her NYU Tisch training (also my alma mater), brought a fresh, sharp perspective that helped carry the piece forward.

Frankly, I also took on this project because I wanted to understand how to work with the next generation of performers — many of whom seem harder to impress, more disillusioned or ironic than I remember being in drama school. I wanted to learn from them. So, this show is not just for them — it was shaped by them.

Kat: Tell us about why you think your show is important and how? What themes and subjects does it speak to?

Eugene: This piece is a response to a very real cultural moment — not just in Hong Kong or Asia, but globally. So many young people today are growing up in a world where traditional job paths are vanishing, and passion-based vocations feel almost impossible unless you’re in a narrow, “safe” field like tech. They’re overworked, underpaid, and yet expected to perform ease and perfection on social media.

We wanted to explore that — to expose what’s beneath the curated veneer of “I woke up like this.” The pressure to constantly appear effortless is exhausting. Add to that the expectations placed on Asian women in both Eastern and Western contexts — it’s a lot to carry, and very little space to talk about it.

This show is for people who are tired but still care. For older-than-Gen-Z audiences who want to understand what younger generations are actually going through. For young dreamers who want to see themselves reflected — not as perfect, but as complex, curious, and full of contradictions. And for Western audiences who are ready to move past exoticization and actually engage in real conversation with contemporary Asian voices.

In 2025, this feels more urgent than ever. We’re asking: is the current model sustainable? Is there an alternative? And how do we keep caring — and dreaming — in a world that’s constantly asking us to shrink?

Kat: Now that we’re in the midst of Fringe season, what are you most excited for?

Eugene: We are excited to come bask in the bustle of this very storied festival, to live and breathe amidst folks who are so dedicated in sharing stories and humanity in performing arts, both makers and audiences alike, these weeks. We hope to meet new friends and collaborators, and hopefully have our lives changed. In the age of survival and information overload, we anticipate a very different culture of human interactions rare in our modern city lives, with conversations sparked by our mutual works and journeys to the fest! We are also rarely able to get away from the hustle and only connect through our art and shared camaraderie with fellow makers and audiences alike! (My team is also particularly thrilled/ obsessed by baby highland cows as well as scotch whiskey tastings! Hit us up for recommendations!)  

Kat: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind, what would it be and why?

Eugene: We are a case – not a bottle – of refreshing, economical and bubbly prosecco – you’ll want more of this effervescence, bottle after bottle, yet the real strength kicks in when you’re knee deep and least expect it! Cheers!!  

A reminder, you can catch Dance Dance Involution from August 1st – 9th and again 11th – 19th at theSpace @ Niddry Street from 12:00 (40 mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.