June 27 and 28
Acupuncture, herbal remedies and Qigong may come to mind when thinking of Chinese medicine but the performing arts? If choreographer-performer Daniel Yeung has his way, this would be so as his latest innovative offering is a dance that references Chinese medicine along with the toned body and mind of what he calls ‘New China’. To get a dose of this particular concoction, head over to the HK City Hall’s Theatre for Medi*C – A Daniel Yeung hyper-visual body-art Dance on June 27 and 28. Showtime is 8pm on both evenings. Tickets are $200 and $140 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

The phrase ‘out of the box’ refers to products that do not require additional installations, plug-ins, etc. It can also be taken to mean an ingenious action or breakthrough. For the City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC), Out of the Box is Resident Artist Xing Liang’s latest performance-art project that is one more step in his continuing quest for the unorthodox. Inspired by the abstract art of pioneering Russian painter and art theorist Wassily Kandinsky, this programme also lays down Xing’s challenge to audiences’ expectations of dance. The presentations on June 27 and 28 at the Kwai Tsing Theatre’s Auditorium will start at 8pm. Tickets are $250, $180 and $140 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

Saturday, June 28
Saturday, June 28
East and West winds come together on Saturday, June 28, when the HK Youth Wind Philharmonia Meets the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra Wind Symphony for a concert whose eight-piece programme starts off with the late great Leonard Bernstein’s popular Overture to Candide and concludes with Yotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s celebrated 1812 Overture. And although the 2008 Olympics still are some weeks away, thoughts will surely turn to that sporting extravaganza on hearing John Williams’s Olympic Fanfare and Theme performed by the two wind ensembles! This joint concert at the HK City Hall’s Concert Hall will commence at 3pm. Tickets are $140, $120 and $80 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

Monday, June 30
Since its founding in 1960, the HK Bach Choir has so expanded in size and repertoire that for its 37th season closer, no compositions by any Bach can be found on the programme even though the music of Johan Sebastian Bach remains a favourite of this now over 80-strong ensemble! Instead, A Nordic Journey features music from seven Nordic countries and composers including Finland’s Jean Sibelius and Norway’s Edvard Grieg. Jerome Hoberman is the conductor for the concert on Monday, June 30, at St John’s Cathedral. The performance begins at 7:30pm. Tickets are $150 from Raymond Choi, 9659 8687 or chairperson@bachchoir.org.hk.

July 2-20
“My films are intended as polemical statements against the American ‘barrel down’ cinema and its disempowerment of the spectator.” With assertions like this and works like triple Cannes Film Festival prize-winners La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher) and Caché (Hidden) along with his film adaptation of Franz Kafka’s Das Schloss (The Castle), it’s small wonder that director Michael Haneke is known as a master provocateur. From July 2 to 20, selections of the Austrian auteur’s works will be shown at the Broadway Cinematheque and Palace IFC as part of the Master of Provocation: Michael Haneke film festival. Tickets, available from the respective theatre box offices, bc.cinema.com.hk or by calling 2388 3188, are priced at $60 for the Broadway Cinematheque screenings and $75 at the Palace IFC. For further details (including individual screening dates and times), please refer to our Listings section.

July 4 and 5
Well known to the Big Lychee’s radio listeners as the host of RTHK Radio 4’s Morning Call, Jonathan Douglas is also occasionally to be found around town singing the blues. The evenings of July 4 and 5 will see him moving between music performance and acting as he presents Angst for Adults, a more-fun-than-it-sounds show that combines original songs and piano music with dramatic monologues by Shakespeare, Pinter and Beckett. The shows at the Fringe Club’s Fringe Theatre begin at 8pm. Tickets are $120 from HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.

July 4-6
A form of traditional theatre regarded as one of the cultural treasures of China, Peking opera arose in the 18th century and was extremely popular in the Qing Dynasty imperial court. But everything in the Modern Peking Opera shows to be performed by the Peking Opera Theatre of Shanghai from July 4 to 6 at the HK Cultural Centre’s Grand Theatre was created during last century’s Cultural Revolution and features larger musical orchestrations with more elaborate sets, modern weaponry and stories than the traditional opera. July 4’s The Azalea Mountain, July 5’s excerpts from The Red Lantern and Sha-Jia-Bang, and July 6’s Taking Tiger Mountain by Stratagem, all come complete with English and Chinese surtitles. The approximately three-hour-long shows begin at 7:30pm. Tickets are $350 to $100 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

July 10-12
Is These Actors Of Mine a true reflection of community theatre? The folks behind Phoenixation Productions, a group intent on promoting and developing English community theatre locally, surely must hope not as this comic play within a play centres on a group of community actors who produce a calamity of Shakespearian proportions when they ambitiously attempt to stage a production of Romeo & Juliet on a budget. The Fringe Club’s Fringe Studio is the venue for the play’s Asian premiere in which the drama backstage rivals the theatrics on stage. Showtime on July 10 to 12 is 7:30pm. Tickets, $150, HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.

July 10-13
A wounded swordsman encounters a mysterious woman living like a hermit deep in the woods in Hanako’s Pillow, the new production from the Fragrant Harbour’s own Theatre du Pif that fuses theatre, song and live music. Inspired by classical Japanese ghost stories and Asian-American playwright David Henry Hwang’s The Sound of a Voice, this dramatic work directed by Australian Robert Draffin will be staged at the HK Cultural Centre’s Studio Theatre. The performances on July 10 to 12 commence at 8pm while the Saturday, July12, matinee begins at 3pm and the single show on Sunday, July 13, starts at 5pm. Tickets are $180 and $120 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

Sunday, July 13
Named one of the Hong Kong Top Ten Outstanding Young Persons in 2003, International Mozart Bicentenary Competition of Asia winner Mary Mei-Loc Wu has given all-Chopin and all-Ravel concerts. But, as befits the pianist’s broad musical interests, the programme for Sunday, July 13’s Piano Recital by Mary Wu is a bit more mixed, with works by Chopin and Ravel but also Albeniz and Beethoven. Wu’s solo concert at the HK City Hall’s Concert Hall will commence at 8pm. Tickets are $250, $180 and $120 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.