The New Vision Arts Festival (NVAF), a showcase of creative, pioneering and interdisciplinary programmes, will be held from October 23 to November 28. Tickets will be available from tomorrow (September 24) onwards.
The NVAF believes that the power of the arts and the innovative spirit should not be restricted within the theatre and, during the pandemic, adaptability and breaking through limitations are even more important. The "ReNew Vision" online platform, launched last year to transport artworks and performances into the virtual realm, has opened horizons for "New Vision".
In its 10th edition, the NVAF will have a new logo: two arrows moving in opposite directions, symbolic of artistic creation having no absolutes, forging ahead to explore new directions, uncover new things and brace for new challenges.
Inspired by Franz Kafka's "A Report to an Academy", director and choreographer Ivanhoe Lam will bring to the audience an experiential theatre performance, "Report ii: the illegal-i", which tells the story of an ape, a research subject being educated to become human, who struggles to seek itself and freedom during its transformation.
The Up:Strike Project's "Menú del día" (Menu of the Day) presents a new concert experience involving handcrafted cocktails paired with music. Audiences can enjoy the sensory crossover sitting in NVAF tailor-made ArtSeats, and then take home the specially mixed cocktails to savour the sensations all over again.
Created for a Nordic gymnasium, choreographer Wayson Poon and Norwegian/Danish stage director Jon R Skulberg's "Moving a memory" will instead be performed in a dance studio in the Kwai Tsing Theatre, enabling the pair to unearth a new dimension of experiences and memories from physical space.
With today's advanced technology, flying is no longer a dream as it was for Daedalus in Greek mythology. Maverick American-Japanese composer Ken Ueno will make use of drones and speakers in his show "HKACT! Act 10 Daedalus Drones" at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center, with a chorus of sound artists and percussionists creating a unique-sounding architecture.
The NVAF will also present a film screening, "NOWHERE (Director's Cut)" by Dimitris Papaioannou. After "The Great Tamer" (2019), which stunned Hong Kong audiences with an utterly beautiful performance, theatre illusionist Papaioannou will, in a theatre at Hong Kong City Hall, for the first time screen the film of his full site-specific work "NOWHERE". Conceived and directed by Papaioannou, "NOWHERE" was commissioned by the National Theatre of Greece for the inauguration of its renovated Main Stage.
Apart from the stage programmes and film screening, there will be an exhibition, "It All Begins with a Word", by new media artist Hung Keung, who reimagines his reading experiences into installations.
The NVAF's online creations will include "TONE" by Japan's new media master Daito Manabe and all-female dance troupe ELEVENPLAY; "Project Labyrinth" by art director Xavier Reyé (France), film director Yeo Siew Hua (Singapore) and composer Eugene Birman; "Between Now and Never" by composer Alan Kwan and film director Wong Chun; "We Still Dance" by Rooftop Productions; and "2³ or Not 2³: East Kowloon is on Minecraft" curated by Kyle Chung and created by multimedia artists Enoch Cheng and Lau Wai.
"Menú del día", "It All Begins with a Word" and "HKACT! Act 10 Daedalus Drones" will extend creativity from in-person encounters onstage to virtual personal encounters in online programmes.
The crossover collaborations, new talent and cutting-edge commissions of the NVAF, organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, offer audiences a range of new experiences.
Tickets will be available at URBTIX (www.urbtix.hk) from tomorrow onwards. For credit card telephone bookings, please call 2111 5999, or use the mobile ticketing app "My URBITX".
For programme enquiries and concessionary schemes, please call 2370 1044 or visit www.nvaf.gov.hk.
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