Visits to the Hong Kong Arts Festival

This February and March, students and the Junior Fellows attended various music and drama performances as part of the 51^st Hong Kong Arts Festival. On February 16, they went to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre’s Grand Theatre in Tsim Sha Tsui to watch a double performance by the Ballet of Slovene National Theatre Maribor. The performances were Radio and Juliet, a rendition of Romeo and Juliet set to music by Radiohead, followed by the troupe’s new interpretation of Vaclav Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps.

On February 21, a different group of students attended Sunny Chan and Tony Wong’s Table for Six on stage, an adaptation of the recent film by the same name. It depicts the domestic squabbles of an extended family (three brothers and their partners), who live together in an inherited char siu factory. This performance was at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Art (HKAPA) in Wan Chai, and students returned to this venue on March 2 to watch the Yat-Sen musical by screenwriter Sunny Chan, composer Peter Kam, lyricist Chris Shum, director Tang Wai-kit. The musical depicted the early years of Sun Yat-Sen’s life, from his medical education to his revolutionary work. Both performances at the HKAPA were in Cantonese, but featured surtitles in English and Mandarin.