What is the essence of stage performances? It is lighting. No matter how spectacular a show is, it must be performed under the lights. Consider, what to look at if the stage is in completely darkness? Apart from lighting up the stage and highlighting performers, what is the role of lighting in stage performances? LightSpace – the lighting installation of multiple award-winning British lighting designer Michael Hulls – fully utilises the rigging system of the Auditorium of Kwai Tsing Theatre, the only venue in Hong Kong equipped with all computerised flying bars, to create a thrilling lighting performance. During the show time, students could feel free to stroll on the stage to be immersed into the lighting extravaganza and be dazed by the charisma of the theatre! After the show, an introduction to the basics of stage lighting will be given by the School of Theatre and Entertainment Arts of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Back to basics. Agree to differ.
A dialogue connecting body, mind and spirit

A super-stylised masked court dance and fluid hip-hop street culture – two parallel universes that can never meet. Or can they? Award-winning Khon artist Pichet Klunchun is the founder of Thailand’s first contemporary dance group. Laotian dancer-choreographer Olé Khamchanla is the initiator of a multimedia performance company in France. Together, they cross traditional and modernist forms to deconstruct established routines and return to the shared roots of movement and its meaning. In a dynamic interweaving of “old” and “new” customs, the cultural dialogue unfolds: probing, confronting, listening, and understanding. And turning macho confrontation into fraternal harmony. Here, two ground-breaking Asian performers of international renown reframe the art of dance to reconnect us with each other and ourselves, uniting diversity and diversifying unity to fully reconcile physical, mental and spiritual being.

Is death knocking on your door today?

Nineteenth-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, originator of Notes from the Underground and a seminal figure in existentialism, foresaw that rationalism would wipe out the desire for freedom and ethical considerations while moral conventions would undermine the complexity of human nature. Could self-awareness enable us to confront these invisible forces and regain control of our own fate again? In an extraordinary event, taking in fragments of Dostoevsky’s works, comedy, the grotesque, and “Art as Vehicle” to transform perception, the Workcenter delivers an underground tour of our unlived wishes and desires, and poses the compelling question: can we liberate ourselves from becoming a member of the living dead?

Reminiscence: Experiment Rare Recordings of Melodies from Hong Kong’s Bygone Age

Naamyam, also known as Deishui Naamyam, is a Cantonese song-art that combines speaking and singing. It was popular around the Pearl River Delta. As a type of traditional Chinese music and a form of oral literature, naamyam is an important heritage both for its artistic and cultural values. Most naamyamsingers are blind, where male singers are called gu si (blind songster), and female singers gu gei (blind songstress) or si noeng (female blind singer). Dou is one of the gu si’s.

In the beginning of the 20th century, deishui naamyam was popular in Hong Kong, where it was mainly performed in tea houses and brothels、 in the 60s and 70s, the prevalence of broadcast television and radio brought changes to entertainment and performance: deishui naamyam went downhill along with the disappearance of traditional performance venues.

In 1975, Professor Bell Yung documented Dou’s performance. In order to show the quintessence of Dou’s artistry and be truthful to naamyam, Yung made the live recordings in Fu Loong Teahouse, where the audience and the ambiance were most familiar to Dou.

In 2018, Zuni experiments with the recordings of Dou via audio system, image projection, and other theatre technology alike, to relive the audio-visual space of deishui naamyam.

Programme offered by the Festivals Office in support of the “2018/19 Arts Experience Scheme for Senior Secondary Students” (For school group booking only) Programme Content “How do you define Hong Kong culture?” If you are giving your answer within 10 seconds, then you may include cha chaan teng (tea diners), milk tea, pineapple buns, etc… But are these all that we can share to others when we discuss Hong Kong culture? Lion dance has taken roots in Hong Kong ever since it migrated south alongside Kung Fu in the 1950s. However, as time passes, many lion dance traditions have vanished. When lion dance is mentioned, we may associate it with vibrant colours, the opening of new shops, the first day of the Chinese New Year, etc. In collaboration with various artists, this programme aims at combining contemporary dance, new media and modern lion dance to enliven the traditional culture with “coolness”. It also attempts to present the lost “lion theatre” through different imageries, such that the audience can be guided to appreciate and preserve Hong Kong culture with contemporary tastes and rhythms.

Become a guest in this theatre-turned living room where reality and dreams meld

Break the boundaries between performer and spectator through the Workcenter’s inspirational production, where “hosts” (actors) and “guests” (audience members) shed the need for characterisation and jettison their conventional separation to interact with each other before and after the work in a “living room”-style performance space. In this communal setting, the “hosts” keep up the powerful and positive connection between the human psyche and the arts through ancient traditional songs and dream sequences exuding warmth and harmony. Distance between strangers then dissolves, providing a singular opportunity for actors and audience to cut loose from their inner baggage and appreciate anew long-forgotten links to one another.

Classical Javanese dance was once exclusive to the royal court and then later spread amongst commoners, having much influence over Indonesian culture.

Kunqu incorporates singing, dance and literature, showcasing a variety of performing arts forms. In 2001, UNESCO declared Kunqu Opera as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

The 2018 scheme of One Belt One Road Experimental Theatre will feature Indonesian, cross-gender, Classical Javanese dancer, Didik Nini Thowok. Eager to absorb different performing arts forms, Nini Thowok travels to Taipei to learn the role of Du Liniang from the Traditional Kunqu Play, Peony Pavilion.

In Hong Kong, an encasing mirrored theatre will become the meeting space for Didik Nini Thowok and Shanghainese Kunqu artist Shen Yili. Yearning for cross-cultural creative exchange, Shen Yili will participate in this collaborative project, bringing forth her specialisation in guimendan roles (young female lead). These two female leads not only become a reflection of one another, but they also provide growth and progress by exchanging through teaching and learning.

Together with contemporary choreographer Park Hobin from Seoul, they re-interpret the classical Chinese literary dream play written by the playwright of the Ming dynasty Tang Xianzu through a cross-language, cross-art, and cross-gender fashion.

Event at the Zoo
Heavenly Palace of Monkey Business

During the Angkor Empire, classical Cambodian dancers performed religious rituals in royal temples and shrines and enjoyed respectable status.

Considered as a Chinese national treasure, Peking Opera was proclaimed as a representative on the List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Cambodian dance artist, Nget Rady specialises in the monkey role of Lakhaon Kaol, the Cambodian classical male masked dance form. Nget’s every move is reminiscent of Hanuman, the monkey god of the epic poem Ramayana, who warred against the evil king Ravana to rescue the consort of his Lord. From Taipei, Chang Yu-chau specialises in the monkey play of clown of Peking opera and masters martial arts skills. Chang portrays Sun Wukong from the classic Chinese tale, Journey to the West, who after rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha, accompanied the monk Tang Sanzang on a journey to retrieve Buddhist sutras from “the West”.

From Zurich to Taipei, from classical Khmer dance to traditional Peking opera, these two monkey leads tour across the Eurasian continent to compare two cultures and the propagation and innovation of two traditional arts.

A flicker originates galaxies of shades and sounds
Fusing literature, dance, space and bodily form into New Vision

A book beyond reading. Choreography beyond imagination. In creating the intriguing Tree of Codes, best-selling American author Jonathan Safran Foer literally carved out words from the 1930s novel, Street of Crocodiles, to create a “sculptured book” with a fresh story to tell. Now contemporary British choreographer Wayne McGregor has added an extraordinary twist to the tale with a swirling, immersive, free-form balletic reinvention that tests the physical limits of the performers, with dancers from Company Wayne McGregor and guest artists.

To convey the weightlessness of words on a page, installation artist Olafur Eliasson (The weather project for London’s Tate Museum, The New York City Waterfalls) constructs a kaleidoscopic landscape out of multiple mirror images, while Mercury Prize winner Jamie xx employs a tailor-made surround-sound system to move beyond the world of records into uncharted sonic realms. A vitality-filled encounter with three exceptional artistic talents who together take contemporary collaborations to enthralling new heights.

Oriental wisdom distilled into a trailblazing Dunhuang epic dedicated to humanity

Tan Dun, the Grammy and Academy Award-winning composer-conductor, boldly presents ancient narratives of Buddha’s teachings in a sweeping epic to celebrate universal values such as equality and sacrifice. Sung in Chinese and Sanskrit, Buddha Passion opens up unprecedented vistas for art and humanity, masterfully melding different cultures into an all-embracing unity.

Buddha Passion consists of six acts – Bodhi Tree, Nine-coloured Deer, Thousand-hand Guanyin, Zen Garden, Heart Sutra, and Nirvana – featuring a star-studded cast of top soloists who portray various characters from Buddhist legends. For this project, Tan Dun visited Dunhuang dozens of times over two years, studying murals in Mogao Caves and reconstructing musical instruments, such as the fantan pipa and xiqin depicted there. In this Asia premiere, he will lead a 200-strong cast from the International Choir Academy Lübeck and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus in his extraordinary quest to revive long-lost sounds from the Tang dynasty.