Music/Xiqu

Starting from documentary films on two performers of diverse backgrounds – a Kunqu artist – Yang Yang from China and a female Noh artist – Hikaru Uzawa from Japan, in revealing the challenges they encounter – on how they foster the traditional art forms that they have inherited and have been representing; and how they venture for their own paths in context of the contemporary society. Whilst contemporary vocalist – Olivia Salvadori performs remixed exerts from classical opera aria, across styles from Giacomo Puccini to vaporwave, in which contrasted with the other two eastern traditional forms of theatre performances, in contemplation of different traditions in experiment.

In this production, documentary expands from the screen to live performance on stage, to intersect with a form that is beyond opera and documentary theatre. The music is certainly cross-cultural and cross-genre experimentation of classical vs avant-garde, melodic vs noise, structure vs improvisation. Performers shuffling between being themselves and performing characters of classical plays, dialogues between their real self with their presenting characters will be juxtaposed together with their different art practices and ideas, to lead us into a hybrid performance.

* Performance in English, Japanese and Putonghua, with partial subtitles in Chinese and English.