Revitalised artistic tradition roars back into action

The lion dance has a deeply rooted and diverse heritage in Guangdong, including the lost form of lion dance theatre. Like the familiar performance of our times, the ancient theatrical tradition combined movement, percussion, kung fu acrobatics, and elements of feng shui. In addition, it served as a storyteller, enabling tales from classic novels, such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, to be turned into dramatic form.

In a fascinating contemporary revival of this colourful performing art, Hong Kong choreographer Daniel Yeung brings together lion dancers and an array of local artistic talents to retell one of the adventures of Three Kingdoms hero Guan Yu. Drawing on classical lion dance, experiential theatre, modern dance, experimental music, and multimedia arts, the super-creative ensemble imaginatively restores and reshapes a forgotten art into a captivating performance for today.

Bending laws of science, shifting paradigms of art
Sounds from an unheard underwater world

Drawn by the boundless possibilities of the unknown, physicists, vocalists, audio engineers, neuroscientists, deep-sea divers, and musical instrument makers have gathered their collective talents to create this extraordinary 100% sound-soaked concert, performed by the world’s first underwater orchestra.

Playing music and singing while submerged. Changing breathing and panting into part of the composition. Hearing water shearing, oxygen escaping… plunging humans into interaction with nature in frontier-breaking forms.

In their eerily melodious and original soundscape, Danish innovators Between Music immerse audiences in the realm between the possible and impossible, turning binary thinking into multi-fathomed perspectives. Through continuous research and experimentation over 10 years, the breathtaking group has also built up a collection of novel instruments – carbon-fibre violins, underwater crystallophone, hurdy-gurdy rotacorda, and others – custom-made for subaqueous music-making. Prepare to traverse fresh and resonant horizons in an unmissable aesthetic experience.

Stumbling in desperation
Finding wings for the soul to fly at Swan Lake

“Swan Lake is all about power!” Inverting the hierarchical realm of classical ballet, acclaimed Irish choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan draws attention to the afflictions of modern society through a hauntingly imaginative dance theatre reincarnation of Tchaikovsky’s classic work. In 2000, there was public outcry in Ireland after John Carthy, a young man suffering from depression, was shot dead in a stand-off with police. Deeply touched by this case and other stories of people on the margins of society, Keegan-Dolan propels together Irish myths, magical realism and dark desolation turning Swan Lake traditions into a story for our times. A Carthy-like character replaces the prince while the cursed swans are silent victims of sexual abuse. Alongside such weighty themes and a searing original score, flashes of light and life shine through, taking viewers on a roller-coaster quest to transcend fate and find the redemption made possible through love.

Guilt and conscience
Pounding at the desolate edges of humanity

Our lives are priceless yet still they can be sold. Today, millions of people are trafficked across borders and many children turned into sex slaves. This is the shocking landscape framing Angel’s Bone, which centres on the machinations of a cash-strapped middle-class couple. After accidentally saving a pair of angels, who have fallen back down to Earth, the once-worthy citizens are tempted to profit from exploiting the bodies of the vulnerable celestials.

Shanghai-born composer Du Yun now lives in New York and is the first Chinese woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Together with librettist Royce Vavrek, international and local musicians and vocalists, she combines opera, pop, chamber music, electronic rock, and cabaret into a searing multi-art performance, probing the twisted psyche of human traffickers.

Angel’s Bone is a new work of opera-theatre that follows the plight of two angels whose nostalgia for earthly delights has mysteriously, brought them back to our world. They are found battered and bruised from their long journey by a couple who is in the midst of a financial crisis. They set out to nurse the wounded angels back to health…then lock them in a room, leaving them a claw foot bathtub for a shared bed, and decided to exploit these magical beings for wealth and personal gains. Angel’s Bone melds chamber music, theatre, pop music, spoken word, opera, cabaret and electronics, exploring the dark effects and motivations behind modern-day slavery and trafficking industry. Chinese-American composer Du Yun has won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music for this production. This programme contains violence and adult content and is recommended for audience aged 13 or above only.

In memory of Her or Him

Transsexual Olive Yang (Yang Kyin Hsiu) rose to power during the Chinese Civil War in the late 1940s, becoming a leading warlord on the Sino-Myanmar border. Seeking a way to support her army, Yang developed massive opium farms and trafficking routes, a business which gradually turned into Asia’s major opiate production site: the Golden Triangle. Queen Zomia, avant-garde artist Royce Ng’s second work in his Museum of Opium trilogy, takes a multi-stranded look at the different narratives that brought about such a development. Through an intriguing dream-like dialogue, visualised into hallucinatory holographic images that are captured within a transparent glass “triangle”, the Hong Kong/Australian creative force produces a powerfully resonant 3D rendition of history.

Majestic ferocity, sublime tragedy

From the second century BCE onwards, dramatic stories of the deeds of late Qin dynasty warlord Xiang Yu have been passed down through the generations. In this remarkable reimagining, The Shanghai Chinese Orchestra rising young musician Yu Bing revamps pipa classics into an innovative theatrical production. Here, musical instruments become the stars, vividly representing the inner and outer lives of the historical characters: pipa for Xiang Yu, bass drum for rival Liu Bang, and xiao and dizi for concubine Consort Yu. Masks, atmospheric lighting, and physical movement add to the evocative retelling of the fabled general’s exploits.

Synthesised jam session of traditional sounds

Born in Fujian, experimental musician Dickson Dee grew up listening to the province’s serene millennium-old Quanzhou nanyin music. After migrating to Hong Kong, he discovered the contrasting Cantonese “southern tone” of naamyam, hailing from the Qing dynasty. For this cutting-edge concert, Dee and his synthesiser remix music of influential Quanzhou nanyin performer Cai Yayi and naamyam artist Chan Chi-kong from Chinese music ensemble The Gong Strikes One, with additional collaborative synergy provided on stage by transmedia artist Milosh Luczynski, dancer Terry Tsang and poet Chris Song.

Where the ordinary becomes extraordinary

The Diary of a Mad Man was written in 1918 by Chinese writer Lu Xun. The novel serves as China’s first modern short story, penned in vernacular Chinese and depicting the protagonist’s frenzied struggle to survive within a seemingly functional society.

In 2018, physical theatre group Théâtre de la Feuille has adapted the tale into a riveting new production. Director Ata Wong and five other performers from around the world join together to present Mad World in Paris. To amplify the narrative, an internationally renowned fashion designer will create a series of avant-garde costumes to retell the story in a contemporary setting.

No matter what the production, there must be lighting for the show to go on. But there are other possibilities for such technical wizardry besides illuminating a stage, building up atmosphere, and signalling changes in space or time. For award-winning British lighting designer Michael Hulls, it is this dazzlingly immersive tribute to the vanishing tungsten light bulb, a choreographic masterpiece – minus the dancers – for audiences to interact with and experience by going on to the stage themselves.

Hulls, who frequently works with renowned dancers Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem, first devised the LightSpace installation-cum-production for UK dance hub Sadler’s Wells Theatre in 2016, designing eye-catching bulb chandeliers that brighten and dim alongside a compelling musical score, startling arrays of lasers, and spotlight scenarios delivering a true light fantastic. In Hong Kong, Hulls will make full use of the advanced rigging system in Kwai Tsing Theatre Auditorium to offer audiences an exhilarating sensory journey.