Whilst I have seen only a few theatre and dance performances in HK, none of them have really blown my mind so I haven’t gone out of my way to see anything further for the sake of feeling angry, disappointed or just bored. A lot of the theatre I have witnessed are modern adaptations of European classic novels or plays (re: Gogol, Checkov & Kafka), some shocking, some OK but nothing out of the ordinary. I have been truly disappointed that there is not a big push to develop truly original and new work here.
I almost went to see a Cantonese version of Sarah Kane’s “4:48 Psychosis” and “Crave” but I thought against it not because there was no English translation provided but the publicity material was so obviously full of suicidal angst and morbidity it led me to believe that the realisation would be exactly that – something I don’t think Kane’s work needs any extra layers of, believe me!
When it comes to theatre set design in HK everything seems to be over designed with a distinct 1980’s new wave flavour – even down to the lurid fluoro eye make up. They also like things falling from the ceiling or fly tower – I think every performance I have seen has had something, whether it be balls, petals, paper, fake snow, buckets, you name it if they can; they will make fall from the sky.
For a large city, theatre seasons are surprisingly short in HK (no more than 4 or 5 performances) and patronage is quite small.
The most outstanding performance I have seen was by a bunch of 3rd year dance students at the HK Academy of Performing Arts, directed and choreographed by ex Leigh Warren and Dancers / ADT dancer John Utans. The visual language was rich and dense and the final stage picture whilst a long time coming was worth the wait.
What I have enjoyed and been inspired by however is the breadth of visual arts and design on offer.
As the industrialist and entrepreneurs set up their assembly lines north of the border (China) Visual Artists are taking over vacant industrial buildings (pictured) such as those in Fotan (an outer area of HK) by turning unused storage facilities into studios. Around 100 artists and 28 studios jointly organised a couple of open weekends in this area and I ventured out to see what was going down.
The exhibition pictured was curated by Parasite – an excellent city based gallery – who called for large work to be screen printed onto vinyl banner material – they displayed these huge works (most were over 3m x 3m) strapped to bamboo poles in the tiniest of rooms and made a maze out the works for the audience to encounter. The work and presentation encompassed such a unique Hong Kong visual style with the use of cheap advertising materials along with the printing, the oversized banners and the bamboo all strong icons of buildings and development here.
HK is the place to come to get cheap fabrication. As an example these light boxes I helped design with ex HK now London based artist Lisa Cheung cost about $AUS130 each to get made. We placed them about the Fringe Club for the City Festival to visually connect various public thoroughfares.
Another touching work I encountered was one done by secondary school students in collaboration with some professional artists for the final days of a little Wan Chai street called “Lee Tung Street”. As mentioned in one of my previous posts there is increasing public concern here over the rapid demolition of anything under 50 years old and the Star Ferry Terminal, which was demolished just before Christmas has ignited these concerns even more. Lee Tung Street or Wedding Card Street – so named as the street once housed many stationery businesses is up for “Urban Renewal” which probably means a large high rise office tower complete with a shopping mall. This simple projection work used the whole street as it’s canvas with many shop windows and entrances becoming places for the projection of photographs taken by students from many local schools. The vacant residential abodes above the shops, their windows taped with crosses were lit with Par-cans highlighting the mid 20th century architecture. This ghost street by day was turned into a simple statement on architectural and personal heritage and past-present memory.
Last weekend I went to an open day at Victoria Prison. The prison is slap bang in the middle of the city and housed its last prisoner as recently as March 2006. Since then there’s been a hot debate as to what to do with it, and whether it should be knocked down for… (yes you guessed it again) a high rise office tower complete with a shopping mall! As a part of the open day many local visual artists were invited to install a work in a cell. Obviously the works revolved around the theme of incarceration and the law and impounded significantly on the already pervading feeling of isolation and imminent mental collapse.
Here’s me donned with a hood in one of the installations pretending to be a criminal for 10 seconds.
Well that's about the size of it! I am sitting in the Qantas VIP lounge as I type this entry whilst waiting for the plane to Sydney then home to some 40 degree Adelaide heat! I have many more pictures, sights and stories I could share with you all including some fun in Ocean Park, Macau and Singapore but that will have to be in person in the right place at the right time.
This one is one of my faves. Such skinny legs! And check out the happy swordfish next to him!
