Sculpting the CITY –
Connecting the theatre with Hong Kong literature
Taking two local literary works, Chan Koon-chung’s Hong Kong Trilogy and Dung Kai-cheung’s Androgyny, as its point of departure, the two-year project attempts to explore the here-and-now of Hong Kong through texts of the past and will close by a presentation of the city’s future in the theatre. The project began in November 2014, and is comprised of various activities that include public talks, online collection campaigns, guided appreciation, dialogue with the authors and stage performance.
1. Public talk
Hong Kong Trilogy carries abundant views of its author Chan Koon-chung about the city where he once lived. Three guest speakers, each representing a generation of HongKongites, are invited to be the respondents at the talk, where they will share their views on the people and the novel.
Guest: Dunn Siu Yue, Cheung Yuen Man, Eva Wong
Moderator: Tse Ngo Sheung
Date: 29 Nov 2014
Time: 4:30-6:30pm
Venue: Multi-media Theatre, HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity
2. The Salvage of another Hong Kong
The Salvage of another Hong Kong is an initiative on the Facebook to call for the public’s participation in a collective effort to re-sculpt a new facet of our city by presenting the uncharted domains of Hong Kong through images, sounds and texts.
Date: Dec 2014 - May 2015
Facebook event page, please click.
3. The Salvage of another Hong Kong – a multimedia sharing session
The Salvage of another Hong Kong – a multimedia sharing session provides the opportunity to ‘exhibit and perform’ the outstanding pieces collected. Guest presenters will be invited to respond to the selected pieces with their own works. Alongside the respondents’ performance will be Theatre Ronin’s script reading of fragments of its latest work Sentimental K.
Date: 26 July 2015
Time: 3:00 pm
3. Guided reading workshop
Chan Koon-chung’s Hong Kong Trilogy captures from the side the spirits of typical and not-so-typical Hongkongites in three important eras. The light and succinct local records belong to a genre that lies somewhere between the serious and the popular. The literary work holds a special place in the realm of Hong Kong culture.
In the workshop, readers will examine the novel from three perspectives: the time of the work, literary style and adaptation for the theatre. Readers’ ability to appreciate the literary piece will be enhanced as they are led into the world of the novel from different angles to discover the relations among themselves, the characters in the novel, and Hong Kong. It is hoped that a caring sense of creativity will be found for the place they live in.
Date: Jan - Feb 2015
4. Sentimental K – Adapted from Hong Kong Trilogy by Chan Koon-chung
Sentimental K is Theatre Ronin’s re-work of Chan Koon-chung’s three stories in his Hong Kong Trilogy. The work is presented in the form of a creative collage of “exotic” sounds, movement and theatre entwined in texts, music, acoustics, dance and video images. The three novels were first published in 1978, 1999 and 2003 respectively, each of which attempts to reveal the deep psychological state of mind of some ordinary Hongkongites in those days.
Date: 25-27 Sept 2015
Venue: Studio Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
For more details, please click.
5. A Conversation: History of the CITY
The city is a highly complex conglomerate, and the people living in it is a lost crowd. How does a writer tell the past history of a city? How could a standpoint manifest a facet of the city by relating to different objects?
A rendezvous of three prominent authors of urban Hong Kong: Chan Koon-chung, Prof. Chu Yiu-wai and Tang Siu-wa, “A Conversation: History of the CITY” is set to be inspiring and enriching exchanges of food for thoughts.
Date: 26 Sept 2015
Time: 5:00 pm
Venue: Studio Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
Sculpting the CITY is financially supported by the Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Presenter: Theatre Ronin
Co-presenter:The House of Hong Kong Literature
The presenter reserves the right to change the programme and substitute artists should unavoidable circumstances make it necessary.
The content of these programmes does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.