M+ Live Art x Hong Kong Ballet: Beyond Carbon

EVENT DESCRIPTION

M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District, and Hong Kong Ballet will present M+ Live Art x Hong Kong Ballet: Beyond Carbon, an online festival that seeks to raise awareness of the most urgent issue of our times—global climate change—through cultural and artistic means.

Taking as its starting point the scientific consensus that human activity is the major cause of climate change, the festival is a call to mindful collective action to save our planet for future generations. Set against the monumental architecture of the Herzog & de Meuron–designed M+ building, the eight short, choreographed chapters by Jessica Burrows, Luis Cabrera, Sarita Chan, Feng Jingyi, Li Lin, Lin Chang- yuan Kyle, Leung Chunlong and Jonathan Spigner, address environmental emergencies from two perspectives: Mortal Ignorance, tension between nature and humankind, and Human Traces, the material traces on earth left by human activity. Viewers will be taken on a journey of exploration, reflection, and empowerment.

The online festival also comprises a special screening of The Measures, a new piece choreographed by Stephen Shropshire. This finale resonates with the overall theme by engaging the abstract form of dance to animate the materiality of the climate crisis.

The videos for the eight choreographed works and the special screening will be available free of charge on the M+ website and Hong Kong Ballet website from Saturday, 20 August to Sunday, 4 September 2022. In addition, there will be an online talk titled ‘M+ Live Art x HK Ballet: Museum, Dance and Climate Change’ at 7pm to 8:30pm on Friday, 26 August 2022. D