Hong Kong Arts Festival announces
HKartsFestival@TaiKwun [go online]
10–11 October 2020
(21st September 2020, Hong Kong)
Despite the many setbacks brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hong Kong Arts Festival (HKAF) is pleased to announce that HKartsFestival@TaiKwun, originally scheduled on 22 February – 1 March 2020, will go online from 10–11 October 2020. The online event is the first of the 48th HKAF programmes to be relaunched and will feature performances, installations and creative workshops broadcast on the “HKAF at Tai Kwun” Facebook page.
“Thanks to the Festival team, who have worked tirelessly in the past few months, we have overcome many unexpected obstacles to finish what we started. And with the unfailing support of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, we have taken an unusual path together. Although the format is different, I hope the artists’ vision will continue to resonate with our audiences’ imagination,” says Ms Tisa Ho, Executive Director of the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS
The programme features a number of films that document works-in-progress developed for the onsite event, as well as original works and workshops adapted for digital presentation.
The site-specific immersive theatre carry on was originally imagined as a guided tour in and around Tai Kwun, produced by Belgium-based arts group fieldworks in collaboration with local artists. Dialogue: carry on is a pre-recorded discussion between the original collaborators reflecting on the rehearsals for this now cancelled performance. The documentary fieldworks portrait, which covers a three-day performative exhibition devoted to the works of the creators, will also be made available to online event-goers.
Originally conceived as a backward walking ritual from Tai Kwun to the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens, Making Space’s online reincarnation will feature Portuguese artist Rita Vilhena’s video sharing on how her backwards-walking ritual has been transformed from one city to another, accompanied by excerpts of an online workshop with Hong Kong participants that the artist conducted in September 2020.
Fragile: work-in-progress documents the creative process of Finnish choreographer Hanna Brotherus and local community dancers, including recordings of rehearsals that explore emotions hidden in the body, empathy and inner strength. The video highlights the importance of human connection in a time when social distance is the new normal.
In Our Atlas, Hong Kong artist Chloe Wong will capture her huge interactive installation of mirror balls, originally intended for Tai Kwun’s Parade Ground, on camera. The work takes participants on a journey through a maze of mirrors to reflect on their many selves.
In Sound Bath, sound artist and therapist Paul Yip will conduct an online ritual of visual stimulation and healing soundscapes to induce a spiritual awareness of “reality” and question experiences of existence and non-existence, contradiction and transcendence of duality.
Combining martial arts, parkour and contemporary dance, Struck was originally conceived as a series of pop-up performances in Tai Kwun in which two young men place a table on their heads and reflect on the meaning of life. When their “table-on-the-head” loitering at Tai Kwun is captured on screen, it tells a different story in the style of Italian Neorealism.
Miró Lab is a series of family DIY workshops that invite participants to explore their hidden artistic selves through the works of Spanish surrealist master Joan Miró. The three online programmes were developed through a long-distance collaboration between artists in Portugal, Macau and Hong Kong.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
HKartsFestival@TaiKwun [go online] is solely sponsored by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.
Partner: Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts
ABOUT THE HONG KONG ARTS FESTIVAL
Launched in 1973, the Hong Kong Arts Festival is a major international arts festival committed to enriching the cultural life of the city. In February and March every year, the Festival presents leading local and international artists in all genres of the performing arts, placing equal importance on great traditions and contemporary creations. The Festival also commissions and produces work in theatre, music, chamber opera and contemporary dance by Hong Kong’s own creative talents and emerging artists, many of which have had successful subsequent runs in Hong Kong and overseas. The Festival also presents over 300 “PLUS” and educational activities that offer diverse arts experiences to the community as well as tertiary, secondary and primary school students. In addition, through the “No Limits” project co-presented with The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, the Festival strives to create an inclusive space for people with different abilities to share the joy of the arts together.
For more information, please visit: www.hk.artsfestival.org .
MEDIA ENQUIRYProgramme details can be found at: https://taikwun.artsfestival.org/
For the latest updates, visit: https://www.facebook.com/hkaf.at.taikwun/
Press kit download: http://bit.ly/hkaf-at-taikwun-media
Cherry Au-Yeung (Chasing Culture Ltd.*)
Tel：9226 7516 / 3599 6963 email：cherry@chasing-culture.com.
* Chasing Culture Ltd. is the PR contractor for HKartsFestival@TaiKwun [go online]