SPOTLIGHT: A Season of Performing Arts 2024

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Tai Kwun is excited to announce the return of SPOTLIGHT: A Season of Performing Arts, which will present five dynamic shows from March through April 2024. As shows from previous seasons gradually make their way to the international stage, this upcoming season carries on the mission of commissioning original new works that delve into subject matters close to every one of us. This year’s programme platforms work from both local and international artists for an eclectic schedule of pieces that bridge mediums within their discrete disciplines, lifting theatre from its conventional forms to incorporate digital arts, painting, and dance, to name a few. Featuring unconventional work re-interpreted to coalesce with Tai Kwun’s unique venues and outdoor spaces, SPOTLIGHT empowers artists to deliver performances that capture elements of life right in the heart of Hong Kong.

This season’s SPOTLIGHT features productions crafted to explore life’s journey in a way that resonates across generations. Internationally-acclaimed filmmaker, Tsai Ming-Liang, alongside Golden Horse Award-winning actor Lee Kang Sheng and painter Kao Jun-honn, sets the programme in motion with acclaimed theatre piece The Monk from Tang Dynasty. Transcending theatre, the work transforms into an art installation highlighting the truth of life, as a painter follows the motions of a monk’s pilgrimage down the Silk Road.

Presenting an individual’s life journey, esteemed concept creator and performer Elsie Chau graces the stage in an exclusive collaboration with long-time partner choreographer Ong Yong Lock in Memory Trace of Western Chamber, delivering a soul-searching foray into solo dance theatre that reimagines personal experiences as scenes from a classic Chinese romance.

Meanwhile, after winning a prestigious theatre award in Catalonia, Dormitory Town travels to Hong Kong to take audiences on a once-in-a-lifetime expedition – specifically composed for the city – to the place where souls rest in bliss, encouraging them to feel more alive while contemplating death.

Projecting visions of a plausible future where memories can be revived and stored, Denmark’s collective The Algorithimic Theatre presents Labyss, a performative installation speculating on the role of technology in the future via a fictitious start-up company.

Enacted in tandem is Retry Login, an interactive participatory theatre project from transdisciplinary artist Lo Wan Ki that invites audiences to share an intimate narrative with a being – undisclosed if digital or organic – to investigate the efficacy of connections in the technological era. The double-billed programmes scrutinise how our lives are increasingly filtered through, and reformed by, the technologies we’ve become so entangled with, and both impersonate the wider implications for humanity.

Spanning four weeks, SPOTLIGHT: A Season of Performing Arts beckons art enthusiasts and culture lovers from across Hong Kong to immerse in performing arts crafted by talents from around the globe, all inside Tai Kwun’s incredible heritage space.