In Conversation with Farooq Chaudhry: Building Bridges Between Worlds

An original interview conducted by Yewen Hua (Skylar), London

Farooq Chaudhry has spent the last quarter-century building bridges between British and Asian artistic worlds — first as co-founder of the Akram Khan Company, and since 2021 as Artistic Director of Fengling Productions. In November 2025, researcher and theatre-maker Yewen Hua sat down with him in London for an extended conversation, part of her MA research at the University of the Arts London. What follows are excerpts from that conversation, touching on his creative process, his own sense of identity, and what's next for Fengling.

Starting from something true

Chaudhry is wary of chasing innovation for its own sake. “What fascinates me is starting from something personal — an idea, subject, or story that genuinely excites me,” he says. “From there, I think about how lighting, animation, set design — everything — can be merged so they all feel like one story. When these elements become mere decoration, the work fails.” It’s why he insists on bringing designers in at the very beginning of a project, before the concept has even fully taken shape: “If you bring them in late, they respond superficially and miss the heartbeat of the project.”

Living in the hyphen

Asked what stands out in his work between British and Chinese artists, Chaudhry describes his own position as the starting point. “I’m British-Asian; I often say I live in the hyphen between ‘British’ and ‘Asian,’” he explains. “When I collaborate with Chinese artists, I look for that in-between space — what lies between the UK and China that hasn't been explored.” He points to Taoist ideas of flow and non-obstruction — wu wei — as a working principle as much as a philosophy: bring strong collaborators together, he says, and “let them coexist; they’ll feed each other organically.”

A line he wouldn't cross

That philosophy has practical edges. Discussing casting for a recent Globe Theatre production, Chaudhry recalls a moment that tested it directly. He had cast two actors as Romeo and Juliet — one of mixed Taiwanese and Pakistani heritage, one a dark-skinned English actor. "The sponsor asked to see ‘other actors,’ implying a preference for blond leads,’ he says. “I refused. If this is an intercultural work, we must expand who gets to be Romeo and Juliet — we cannot default to the DiCaprio template.” It's a small anecdote that says a great deal about where Fengling draws its lines.

What's next

The conversation also looked forward. Chaudhry speaks with particular pride about Ten Thousand Tons of Moonlight, Fengling’s collaboration with the poet Xiuhua Yu — “a project I'm especially proud of,” he says, “because it required deep mutual trust.” He's now working with designer Tim Yip again, on costumes for the forthcoming A Bridge Across Heaven. And from January 2026, he has been invited to take on a new role as Artistic Director of a 50-dancer company in Shenzhen, built around what he calls “five concentric circles of influence” — moving outward from the city itself to the Greater Bay Area, to China, to Asia, and finally to a global stage. Further ahead, he hopes to launch a Chinese Dance Festival in London in 2027.

Asked how he manages the pressure of it all, his answer is characteristically unguarded: “Three mornings out of seven I wake up terrified — feeling I might fail. But fear is useful: like pre-show nerves, it fuels focus. I worry only when it's gone.”

From conversation to concept

The conversation also played an important role in Hua’s academic research. Conducted as part of her MA dissertation at UAL Wimbledon College of Arts, the interview became one of the key research materials through which she developed the second major argument of her thesis. Chaudhry’s reflections on his creative process — particularly his approach to moving between different artistic perspectives, cultural contexts and practical demands — inspired Hua to develop the idea of “transformative thinking”. She subsequently used this concept as a central analytical lens in her case study of Simply Love, exploring how creative teams negotiate and transform relationships between different aesthetic systems, media and modes of theatrical expression.

Read Hua's fuller case study of Simply Love, developed through the lens of "transformative thinking". Yewen Hua

About the interviewer: Yewen Hua (Skylar) is a theatre maker, playwright, director, performer and educator based in China. She holds an MA in Performance: Theatre Making with Distinction from the University of the Arts London, Wimbledon College of Arts, and a BA in Performance from Nanjing University of the Arts.