Hong Kong International Shakespeare Festival【Early Bird】(2-21.4.2024)
You don't know much about life until you know Shakespeare.
Presented by Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio, the Hong Kong International Shakespeare Festival ( HKISF ) is Hong Kong's first international performing arts platform focusing on the artistic expression of Shakespeare's works. By presenting contemporary and innovative productions of Shakespeare's plays from Hong Kong and abroad, HKISF is committed to facilitating cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary exchange as well as enriching the cultural life and creative impulse of Hong Kong.
Early bird tickets available on ticketing system art-mate from 2 April ( Tuesday ) to 21 April 2024 ( Sunday ) at 10:00am.
Half price tickets for senior citizens aged 60 or above, people with disabilities and a companion, Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients, and full-time students will be available on ticketing system URBTIX. Details will be announced later.
Presented by: Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio
Strategic and Venue Partner: West Kowloon Cultural District
Hong Kong International Shakespeare Festival is financially supported by the Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio is financially supported by the HKADC's “Eminent Arts Group Scheme”
The content of these programmes does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Hong Kong Arts Development Council supports freedom of artistic expression. The views and opinions expressed in this project do not represent the stand of the Council.
A rerun of Tang Shu-wing's masterpiece of body aesthetic brought to life by a Hong Kong and Romanian cast
Featuring an all-female cast with no dialogue, Tang Shu-wing's new interpretation of King Lear is a non-verbal theatre that transcends the boundaries of Shakespeare's plays but remains quintessentially Shakespearean.
An international cast from Hong Kong and the National Theatre Marin Sorescu of Craiova promises to deliver a rarely seen and provocative performance of this classic, built on a highly minimalistic and stylised aesthetics created by a team of visionary artists from the city of Hong Kong.
Premiered in Hong Kong in 2021, King Lear toured to Shanghai in 2023, followed by more touring performances in London, Berlin and Craiova in May 2024. This critically-acclaimed production is set to return to Hong Kong this June as the opening performance of the Hong Kong International Shakespeare Festival.
**Recipient of the Director of the Year and Performer of the Year Awards, IATC (HK) Critics' Awards 2021**
"An extremely bold experimentation. The director's creative ambition and ability to execute are all worthy of appreciation." —The International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC HK)
"Tang decides to explore the unlimited possibilities with the bold originality in style, making the adapted King Lear a newborn star." —The Theatre Times
*2024.6.5 with post-performance meet-the-artist session.
Host: Natasha Rogai (Performing arts critic of the South China Morning Post)
【HKISF】 "Henry V Man and Monarch"
The legend of England's warrior king comes alive again with a bold adaptation by Director of York International Shakespeare Festival
A man with a paper crown recites Henry V's legendary speech in a room, while toying with a paper solider – is he the honoured English warrior king on the eve of the battle of Agincourt, or just a madman imposing as the monarch?
A one-man show directed by Philip Parr, Director of the York International Shakespeare Festival, Henry V Man and Monarch dives deep into the epic historical background of Shakespeare's original version to explore the different facets of Henry V at several critical junctures of his life. Complementing the show's exceptional storytelling is Australian actor Brett Brown's outstanding performance, which brings the character's emotional conflicts and dilemmas into forefront.
Having toured to several Shakespeare festivals in seven countries across Europe, the production will make its exciting debut in Hong Kong at the city's first international Shakespeare festival!
**Recipient of the Best One-Man Show at Ostrava Summer Shakespeare Festival, 2016**
"The production of Henry V is memorable. … primarily because of the phenomenal performance of Brown."—Shakespeare Daily, Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival, Poland
"Emerging star… He can sing, dance, and act most people into a corner." – The Sydney Morning Herald
*2024.6.7 with post-performance meet-the-artist session.
Host: Molly Grogan (Theatre Critic and Creative Producer)
A dance theatre epitomising the thriving cultural exchange between East and West
Following the knockout performance of imPerfect Dancers Company's Hamlet in 2022, an Italian production performed by a local cast and presented by TSWTS, the 2024 HKISF will see another exciting cultural exchange between Hong Kong and Italy – the performance of the company's another iconic piece Lady Macbeth staged in collaboration with Hong Kong Dance Company (HKDC). Deputy choreographer Huang Lei, HKDC's Dance Master, will join force with Principal Dancers Hua Chi-yu and Ong Tze-shen, who play the roles of Lady Macbeth and Banquo respectively, to bring this gripping, psychologically profound dance theatre to life.
Lady Macbeth starts off where Shakespeare's version ends: the Macbeths are dead. Freed from their earthly torments, they are however condemned to endlessly relive the darkest period of their past – a punishment inflicted upon them and which they in turn inflict on each other. They blame one another, seeing the other as the real culprit. Lady Macbeth focuses on the devastating and bleak love story between the Macbeths, taking the audience on a journey to discover the complexities of the human psyche.
This programme is co-produced by Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio and Hong Kong Dance Company.
*2024.6.8 with post-performance meet-the-artist session.
Host: Prof. Anna CY Chan (Dean of the School of Dance, The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts)#
#With kind permission from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts
Italian talented director Alessandro Serra and an all-male cast hold the stage with a sensational physical theatre
Italian director Alessandro Serra sets Shakespeare's most compact tragedy in the ancient and mysterious island of Sardinia, Italy, utilising its unique culture and customs to create the darkest interpretation of Macbeth. The primitive desire for power fills the desolate land, where cowbells, animal skins, horns, stones and human voices pierce the theatre and intense lighting strikes the nerve. Resembling the tradition of Elizabethan theatre during Shakespeare's time, the all-male cast puts on an eerie, physical and all-baring performance to showcase the shocking and extreme darkness in human nature.
**Recipient of the Best Show of the Year, Ubu Award 2017; the Best Prose Show, The Masks of the Theater Award 2019 and the Baltic Theater Festival Prize 2021**
"Alessandro Serra subtly distils the quintessential plot of the tragedy, often transmuting text into visual metaphors. Macbettu is an incessant cauldronful of fiendishly inventive ideas orchestrated by Serra like an irresistible dance macabre."—SAGE Journals
* 2024.6.11 with post-performance meet-the-artist session.
Host: Ata Wong (Artistic Director of THÉÂTRE DE LA FEUILLE)
Korean clown theatre meets Indian music and contemporary dance in a stage spectacle bursting with bizarre stories
Hamlet_Avataar transports audience to an unknown world filled with Korean humour, moving seamlessly between incest and revenge stories often featured in Korean dramas, absurd clown entertainment and the most bizarre plots that defy imagination. Fusing Korean clown theatre, traditional Indian music and contemporary dance, this tragicomic production bears an uncanny resemblance to our reality with its innovative use of humanoid avatars characters. Following its premiere in South Korea in 2014 and Indian tour in 2015, Hamlet_Avataar stood out as a prime example of Korean contemporary theatre in 2018 when it was selected as the closing performance of the Pyeongchang Culture Olympic programme.
“A spectacle that had its audience spellbound, with brilliant use of screens and semi-reflective sheet, Hamlet Avataar's characters had both lively charisma and puppet-like gestures to unravel the myriad complexities. —The Hindu
*2024.6.16 with post-performance meet-the-artist session.
Host: Winton Au ( Founder of One Month One Art )