Six dark-humoured, interwoven tales about handling the harshness of reality
One morning, a woman is driving to work. She is listening to the radio playing “On a Clear Day”, while thinking that life could not get any worse when a body suddenly lands in front of her car. She is shaken. However, her initial shock soon gives way to selfish anger as she begins to blame the “jumper” for disrupting her schedule. And so the story begins, 24 hours before death. On this “Black Monday”, a group of people struggle with their jobs. They work to live, but should work really stop them from living? Who will survive in the end?
[Taiwanese writer and cultural critic] Lung Ying-tai said Hong Kong people are highly efficient but our approach to work destroys our personality. I sometimes think we even lose our humanity” – Candace Chong, playwright

Spectacular music and literature have been written for men and women who committed suicides in the name of love. The Butterfly Lovers, Romeo and Juliet, Madame Butterfly, Princess Changping and her consort Zhou Shixian as well as Yu Fa and her lover Sub Yee Siu are all up against each other in The Greatest Suicide For Love, an underworld contest not unlike The Voice. Through song and dance, cat fights and most of all, a divine belief in their sacrifices, these neither folks hold nothing back to claim the winning title and be truly immortalized.

Born to a French aristocratic family, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was an aviator, adventurer, author, poet and national hero all in one. During World War II, he joined the air force at the “old” age of 44, but suddenly disappeared in a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean Sea. His wife Consuelo, a Latin American, was famous for her beauty. Their marriage has been likened to a relationship in the eye of a storm, at once passionate and tumultuous. Consuelo was Saint-Exupéry’s muse, a woman he could not live with but could not do without. Rose Love Letters tells the moving story of Saint-Exupéry and Consuelo’s marriage, his life as an adventurer, the insights of a poet and the sentiments of a patriot.

East Wing West Wing is Hong Kong’s first comedy series about local politics. Since 2003, nine episodes of the East Wing West Wing series have been performed.

The first episode 2046 CE Bye Bye is a reflection on SARS; the second episode Reloaded discusses democracy and accountability; the third episode Mic On!!! Mic Off!!! explores the culture of local media and the role of legislators; the fourth episode West Kowloon Side Story focuses on the feasibility of the West Kowloon development; the fifth episode Back to the Ching Dynasty looks back the first decade since the Handover of Hong Kong; the sixth episode Judge Pao discusses the legal systems of Hong Kong and the Mainland; the seventh episode Hong Kong Civil Servant Death Note is a comment on the civil service system; the eighth episode West Kowloon Dragon Ball looks at the latest developments in West Kowloon Cultural District; and the ninth episode Sap Dai Kau Goon reviews the calendar of events of Hong Kong’s top officials.

Over 100 shows have been performed, entertaining more than 70,000 people in total. East Wing West Wing has developed into a Hong-Kong-style civil education drama, allowing local residents to explore politics, learn about Hong Kong’s current political culture and look into the future development through laughter. Praise from all walks of life has transformed East Wing West Wing into a drama brand that deftly integrates entertainment and political comment.

Memorandum is the latest work of Danny Yung, Co-Artistic Director of Zuni Icosahedron, in 2014. It is a brand new theatre production and conglomeration of literature, history, intangible cultural heritage and contemporary theatre. There will be four experimental short pieces on “memory”, based on the classic works of four deceased Chinese artists, and the works are:

Story of the Stone, also known as Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, the most controversial of the four great Chinese novels;

The treasure of Kunqu aria, Flee by Night from The Legend of the Precious Sword by Li Kaixian, one of the Eight Talents in the Reign of Jiajing;

Tears of Barren Hill by Cheng Yanqiu, one of the four great Dan (female roles) actors in Peking opera;

The musical, Lao Jiu by Kuo Pao Kun, the best of the theatre in Singapore

Yung gathers together artists from traditional Sichuan opera, Kunqu opera and contemporary theatre in order to search for and examine the issue of memory. It is his attempt to organize personal history and reconstruct collective memory.

Once again, Yung is using the minimal form of the stage of “one table two chairs”. This concept of “one table two chairs” has its origin from the abstract and impressionistic style of staging in traditional Chinese opera. Since 1997, Yung has been using this minimal and versatile form of staging, combines it with the minimalist style of contemporary theatre, to create experimental works with artists from various places of the world. Until now, more than 100 artists have been commissioned to participate in this project of trans-regional, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration.

Students will hear movements from one of the most ambitious chamber works written by Joseph Haydn who is considered the “father of the string quartets”, as well as from the first of Beethoven’s late quartets, reputed to be amongst the greatest musical compositions of all time. The journey will also include the second quartet by Czech composer Leo Janáček, nicknamed “Intimate Letters” by the composer, as it was inspired by the passionate correspondence over eleven years between Janáček and a young married woman with whom he was very much in love.

To enhance student’s concert experience, Premiere Performances is inviting local music critic Mr Dennis Wu to give a brief introduction of the composers and their music pieces to guide the students on how to appreciate their works before each piece of music.

Works to be performed include movement from:
Haydn: String Quartet in D minor, Op.76 No.2, Hob III: 76
Beethoven: String Quartet No.12 in E flat Major, Op.127
Janacek: String Quartet No.2 “Intimate Letters”

Music has a very lively role to play in the vivid world of animation. A familiar tune can always recall images and scenes of your favorite animated films in your mind’s eye. In concert “The Music World of Animation”, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra is going to present Chinese music with refreshing elements to all senior high school students.

Fear not the high waves nor the ghastly storms, for fortune, friendship, love and new life await at the opposite side of the ocean. We experience all these and more with music spanning through time, including Western operas, German lieder, Broadway musicals and Hollywood film music, sung by renowned tenor David Quah, baritone Albert Lim and soprano Sandy Leung, with pianist – the young multi-awardee Rachel Cheung, and Assistant Cello Principal of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra Dora Lam providing a colourful musical palette on the ever-changing sea. We ride with the explorer on stormy waves and uneasy waters, share his drinking bouts with fellow sailors, and weep with a broken heart for his pursuit of true love till the end of the world. The Seafarer is a concert about the adventurous life of a man at sea. Come on board and traverse the four seas with us on this adventurous concert!

Arts Experience Scheme for Senior Secondary Students

Dream Illusion Bubble Shadow is derived from the last chapter of the Diamond Sutra (“Al conditioned phenomena are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows” and uses the negating logic of No to create the aesthetics of Emptiness. Time is structure. One and Zero. The body transforms into images. Movements on stage pass through virtual time and the actual space. Live guitar performs the no-sound of guqin. Synthesized electronic music interacts with body movements. In the five parts of Dream Illusion Bubble Shadow, dancers of Dance Forum Taipei together with artists from Hong Kong and Tokyo, co-create an atypical contemporary multimedia dance work that transforms the ordinary norms of presentation – introduction, elucidation, transition and conclusion.