Spotlight, Tai Kwun Performing Arts Season

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Tai Kwun is pleased to announce an all-new performing arts season of SPOTLIGHT, which will showcase seven programmes uniquely created for Tai Kwun from September until October 2021; offering performances and a cultural feast of Hong Kong talent for Tai Kwun audiences.

Carrying on the mission to explore the uncharted areas of performing arts, SPOTLIGHT will present six newly commissioned works.

The site-specific theatre production The Inner Études takes us on an intimate journey beginning from a granite found near Prison Wall. Meanwhile, two new music productions – LauZone, a Hong Kong-style cabaret created by the team of the sold-out Tri Ka Tsai – will give a humorous account of the city’s unique cultural values; while The Happy Family presents a concert featuring an original novel and score, as it tells the story of a middle-class Hong Kong family.

Three distinctly different dance works will demonstrate the breadth of movement. These include the innovative Minute Moonshine that takes you from the virtual online world to Tai Kwun; Diary VII • The Story Of…… by the celebrated choreographer Mui Cheuk Yin; and No. 60: Back to Basic, a lecture performance by Thai choreographer Pichet Klunchun on contemporary and Thai Khon dance.

【Hong Kong-style cabaret】LauZone │23–26.09.2021
Date & Time: 23–25 September 2021, 8pm;
25–26 September 2021, 3pm
Venue: JC Cube, Tai Kwun
Ticket: $300

【Dance Theatre x ARG】Minute Moonshine │01.10–03.10.2021
Five Hong Kong artists based both locally and in London will immerse Minute Moonshine audiences in the rich historicity of Tai Kwun, as they invite spectators to enter a surreal world traversing between a dance performance, visual images and installations. Through the form of contemporary experimental theatre and an alternate reality game (ARG), Minute Moonshine seamlessly blends ARG, performance and authentic Hong Kong elements in a number of simulated realms that deconstruct and reorganise familiar imageries of Hong Kong.
Date & Time: 1-2 October, 8pm;
2-3 October 2021, 3pm
Venue: F Hall Studio, Tai Kwun
Ticket: $280

【Music X Literature X Projection】The Happy Family│01–03.10.2021
With Hong Kong ranked 77th in world happiness, is having a warm and perfect family a foregone conclusion? After the chamber opera Women Like Us, composer Daniel Lo and novelist Wong Yi have collaborated once again with The Happy Family. The contemporary music composition ponders the intimate topic of “family” through a typical middle-class Hong Kong household of five and their dog. The Happy Family features an all-new riveting score for a seven-player instrumental ensemble, narrator Yau Chung Wai, as well as video and animation by media artist Yu Wing Yan. This beautiful encounter of music and literature is a nuanced portrait of the intricate entanglements and inevitable sacrifices made by Hong Kong families.
Date & Time: 1–2 October 2021, 8:15pm;
2–3 October 2021, 3:30pm
Venue: JC Cube, Tai Kwun
Ticket: $300

【Dance】No. 60: Back to Basic │07–10.10.2021
One of Thailand’s crowning and scared artistic treasures, Khon is a form of dance theatre that combines elements including dance, drama, music, poetry, and shadow play into an art form traditionally performed in the royal courts. In No. 60: Back to Basic, Pichet Klunchun will lead four Hong Kong dancers from different disciplines and training to an exploration that transcends culture and countries. Through a lively combination of demonstration and lecture, Klunchun contemplates the meaning of maintaining the artistic legacy and its transformation. No. 60: Back to Basic breaks the conformity and translates the spirit of Khon into a contemporary context, allowing Hong Kong dancers to showcase their uniqueness by deconstructing the fundamental Khon techniques.
Date & Time: 7–9 October 2021, 8pm;
9 October 2021, 3pm;
10 October 2021, 5pm
Venue: JC Cube, Tai Kwun
Ticket: $280

【Site-specific Theatre】The Inner Études │07–17.10.2021
Presented by the creative team behind the highlight programme Property Guide at Lou Kau Mansion in the 2021 Macao Arts Festival, The Inner Études is a rock-themed immersive theatre inspired by Victoria Prison and the geological history of Hong Kong rocks. Wearing headsets, the audience ventures into the century-old prison built with granite and connects with the emotions and experiences of those imprisoned a century ago, by being immersed in a collage of projections, lighting, soundscape and performance.
Date & Time: 7-10, 12–17 October 2021, 7pm & 9pm
Venue: Site-wide, Tai Kwun
Ticket: $300

【Partner Programme】#DANCELESS complex│16.09–16.10.2021
Our partner Unlock Dancing Plaza will present free public workshops and performances to
explore the relationship between body and methodology of choreography.
Drink and Dance
Drink and Dance literally means to drink and to dance – imagine yourself at a party, immersed in the throbbing and excessively loud music – what is left on your mind? Perhaps it is simply a blank state, what is left is the pure joy of overindulgence.
Date & Time: 16–19 September 2021, 6:30pm
Venue: Prison Yard, Tai Kwun
Ticket: Free Admission

FreeSteps Workshop by Su Wei Chia
The workshop employs some of the methodologies into education, leading the participants to explore their body movements, and dance freely to search for and to create endless possibilities of the body.
Date & Time:
15 October 2021, 7:30pm
16 October 2021, 10:30am & 3pm
Venue: JC Cube, Tai Kwun
Ticket: Free Registration Online

Tickets available at art-mate.net and URBTIX now.