SPOTLIGHT: A Season of Performing Arts Returns to Bring Outstanding Multidisciplinary Productions from Hong Kong, Macau, Japan and Beyond to a New Stage
HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 18 March 2025 - Now in its fifth year, Tai Kwun's SPOTLIGHT: A Season of Performing Arts presents a new lineup of vibrant interdisciplinary collaborations exploring not just the far edges of various art forms but also the cracks that fall in-between. With works from previous seasons commissioned especially for Tai Kwun's distinctive venues and outdoor spaces having now advanced well beyond Hong Kong onto the international stage, SPOTLIGHT once again returns to provide a new stage for performing arts for both local and international creators to contemplate subjects that are deeply personal yet universally significant.
This year's eclectic offerings, a mix of returning guests and artists new to Tai Kwun, opens with Fragile! Human Inside, a synthesis of sound, moving images, installation and performance art by multimedia artist GayBird contrasting the historic durability of an architectural exterior with the resilient potential of its human inhabitants. An unlikely pairing of rap and contemporary dance sparks a pioneering performance style in ARIKA, where the physical vocabulary of dancer SHIMAJI Yasutake confronts and converses with the improvisatory verbal contortions of rapper TAMAKI ROY in their first Asian appearance outside Japan. Three young choreographers from Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Keung Hoi-ling, Paula Wong and Fu Binjing) showcase their innermost thoughts through their distinctive grasp of personal and public space in the triple-bill Infinite Extension, while the artists of Vividly explore the centuries-old connection and intertwined destinies of Hong Kong and Macau in Fugue of Two Shores, the final instalment of an immersive theatrical trilogy that first took root at Tai Kwun in 2021.
'Since our opening in 2018, Tai Kwun has not merely championed artists in interesting projects, but continues to nurture those artistic talents over time,' says Timothy Calnin, Director of Tai Kwun Arts. 'Vividly's immersive Fugue of Two Shores brings to a close a collaboration we started back in 2021, when the company first explored Tai Kwun's unique history and environment through the geological layers of granite underlying Victoria Prison. Their final chapter's shift from rock to water, befitting the journey of Hong Kong and Macau from two fishing ports to thriving modern cites, is a testament to how working with the same artists over time can yield entirely different perspectives.'
Linda Yip, Head of Performing Arts, adds, 'Apart from our wide range of venues and performance spaces—from the outdoor Laundry Steps to the supremely flexible JC Cube, which gives a veteran artist like GayBird a unique canvas to incorporate elements of virtual games in a live spatial design—Tai Kwun offers an artistic platform arguably more valuable than the physical spaces themselves. This is a zone where conventional barriers of generation, geography and genre no longer apply, where local artists like the young choreographers of Infinite Extension or overseas artists like SHIMAJI Yasutake and TAMAKI ROY of ARIKA can join together to break borders and create cross-disciplinary synergy.'
Spanning six weeks, SPOTLIGHT: A Season of Performing Arts invites lovers of music, dance, theatre and visual art from across Hong Kong and beyond to sample the diverse range of local talents and international artists gathered here to find creative inspiration and sustenance in Tai Kwun's incomparable heritage spaces.
[Installation x Moving Images x Sound] Fragile! Human Inside | 04-06,08–10.04.2025
Packed within dozens of cardboard boxes forming an installation on the Laundry Steps (visually echoing the bricks of Tai Kwun's historic structures) are the materials of a full multisensory experience, with soundscape and video projections curated by award-winning media artist GayBird. The cartons of Fragile! Human Inside represent not just the stability of bricks but also the fluidity of building blocks reassembling the human form. Within the JC Cube, physical boundaries between performer and audience as well as the tangible and virtual world blur into a dreamlike experience where sight and sound combine in an expansive exploration of fragility and stability.
Multisensory Experience
Artistic and Music Director, Installation and Programme Design, Live Performance: GayBird
Date & Time: 4–6, 8–10 Apr 2025, 7:30PM–8:40PM
Venue: JC Cube & Laundry Steps, Tai Kwun
Ticket: HK$280
In Cantonese with Chinese and English surtitles
There will be post-performance talks and Unboxing Backstage sessions, details to be announced, please stay tuned to the Tai Kwun website.
[Contemporary Dance x Rap] ARIKA | 04–05.04.2025
The vocabulary of dance meets the motion of rhyme in this breathtaking display of multidisciplinary improvisation. Subtitled 'A Pursuit of Dance, Music and Words,' ARIKA ('Whereabouts') features SHIMAJI Yasutake, a veteran dancer of the renowned Forsythe Company trained in ballet, hip-hop dance and martial arts, joining forces with rapper TAMAKI ROY, an award-winning master of spinning atmosphere through rapped and sung texts, in a collaboration shaking those respective genres to their core, where fluid dancing unfolds with musical grace and hip-hop rhymes propel with palpable physical force. Making their Hong Kong debut after appearances in Japan and France, SHIMAJI and TAMAKI ponder the nature of their respective fields to their very roots. If all music is simply a song and dance, which comes first?
Contemporary Dance x Rap
Direction, Choreography and Performance: SHIMAJI Yasutake
Direction, Composition and Performance: TAMAKI ROY
Date & Time: 4–5 Apr 2025, 6PM–7PM
Venue: F Hall Studio, Tai Kwun
Ticket: HK$280
In Japanese without surtitles
[Contemporary Dance x Exploration] Infinite Extension | 11–13.04.2025
Tai Kwun's F Hall Studio will be draped in a triptych of distinct kinetic visions of body-space interaction Infinite Extension. Keung Hoi-ling's I Saw a Ping-Pong. I Crushed It. It Was an Egg. redefines the relationship between individuals and their surroundings, traversing between analysis and the stream of consciousness connecting thoughts throughout the body. Paula Wong's Come closer, go deeper! explores the female experience through physical posture, inviting the audience to feel the resulting pain, pleasure, tension and ease as bodily shifts draw public attention. The imaginative realm of Fu Binjing's Neverland questions traditional notions of 'beauty,' 'standardisation' and 'meaning' by using artificial materials and waste to connect the body with the external world.
Experiential Contemporary Dance Theatre
Choreography and Performance: Keung Hoi-ling, Paula Wong, Fu Binjing
Date & Time: 11 Apr 2025, 7:30PM–9PM
12–13 Apr 2025, 2:30PM–4PM
Venue: F Hall Studio, Tai Kwun
Ticket: HK$280
In Cantonese with no surtitles
Post-performance Talk
Date & Time: 11 Apr 2025, 9PM-9:30PM
12-13 Apr 2025, 4PM–4:30PM
Venue: F Hall Studio, Tai Kwun
[History x Environmental Theatre] Fugue of Two Shores | 25.04–17.05.2025
The collaborative arts group Vividly conclude their trilogy of immersive theatrical surveys of Hong Kong, which began with The Inner Études (2021) exploring the rocks near Victoria Prison and continued with The Sublime Progressions (2023) investigating themes of migration and diaspora, focusing their final chapter on the longtime relationship between Hong Kong and Macau. Fugue of Two Shores begins by contrasting their histories and comparing their intertwined destinies from sleepy port cities to vibrant urban centres. Interpreting historical texts through multidimensional realms of lighting, soundscape, projection and live performance, Fugue of Two Shores highlights Macau's influence on Hong Kong and the contrasts in local people carving their own contemporary identity after having been long defined by others.
History x Environmental Theatre
Curated and Produced by: Vividly
Concept, Co-Director and Multimedia Director: Jay Lei
Concept, Research, Co-Director and Playwright: Jay Lee
Dramaturg: Kok Heng Leun
Performers: Chan Wing-shuen, Chan Tze Sum Cecilia, HuiJim, Hanks Li
Voice Narrator and Acting Coach: Sam Choy
Date & Time: 25–26 & 28 Apr; 1–3, 5, 8–10 & 15–17 May 2025, 8PM–9:30PM
27 Apr; 4 & 11 May 2025, 7PM–8:30PM
Venue: F Hall Studio & Prison Yard, Tai Kwun
Ticket: HK$280
In Cantonese with no surtitles
Artist Talk
Date & Time: 1 May 2025, 6PM–7PM
Venue: Laundry Steps, Tai Kwun
Ticket: Free admission
Ticketing
Tickets available at art-mate.net now.
SPOTLIGHT: A Season of Performing Arts 2025
4 Apr–17 May 2025
Site-wide, Tai Kwun
www.taikwun.hk
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