3 highlights from Hong Kong’s New Vision Arts Festival you won’t want to miss


The New Vision Arts Festival, organised by Hong Kong’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department, is known for its daring and challenging choice of programmes.

This year’s event offers an eclectic mix of dance, multimedia and music theatre that focuses as much on original stagecraft as it does on traditional narrative. Here are three highlights that you will not want to miss.

Oh, To Believe in Another World

This is the Asian premiere of South African contemporary artist William Kentridge’s cinematic take on the life of Russian composer and pianist Dmitri Shostakovich.

Commissioned by Swiss orchestra the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester last year, the film explores Shostakovich’s complicated relationship with Soviet Russia from the 1920s to 1960s. To the score of Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 10”, Kentridge uses drawings, collage lithographs and cardboard puppets to bring his story to life.

The one-hour piece will be accompanied by a live performance by the Hong Kong Sinfonietta under the baton of its music director, Christoph Poppen.

How TV changed the way we see the world in 14 video works at Hong Kong show

Double Murder

Opening the festival is this dramatic dance double bill by the Hofesh Shechter Company. While Clowns is described as “a macabre comedy of murder and desire” that looks at our ever-growing indifference to violence; The Fix, Shechter’s new work, is more about the fragility of human nature and hope.

Founded in 2008 and last performed in Hong Kong in the 2014 edition of the festival, the UK-based dance troupe celebrates the freedom of human spirit. Artistic director Shechter was named honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to dance in 2018.

Rain

Japanese choreographer Ryu Suzuki reimagines British writer W. Somerset Maugham’s 1921 short story in this atmospheric multimedia performance. Co-produced by Japan’s Aichi Prefectural Art Theatre and Dance Base Yokohama, this work is an exploration into human relationships.

In Maugham’s original, people at odds with each other are trapped under one roof waiting for the onslaught of torrential rain. Heightening this sense of tension and unease is the interaction between dancers and an iteration of “Liminal Air – Black Weight”, an installation by contemporary artist Shinji Ohmaki, which symbolises the omen of the coming deluge.

Organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the New Vision Arts Festival runs until November 19. Click here for more information.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *