Category: performing arts

Wine & Dine Festival 2015

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The 2015 Wine & Dine Festival at the Central Harbourfront features a dizzying array of food and wine to enjoy over the next three days. The festival is organised by HK Tourism, which ensures that a large number of the territories hotels have food booths showcasing their signature dishes at prices well below what you’d find when dining at the hotel.

There’s wine, wine and more wine, tasting rooms, samplers and wine pairing dinners. To enjoy a glass and to keep things simple wine’s have been divided in to two categories. Classic wine – $20/coupon and Grand wine $50/coupon. You can purchase as many or as few coupons as you desire.

Food… There’s lots of lovely food, a smorgasbord of tastes and flavours from across the globe. The food and wine booths are separated into zones. Sadly, neither the festival map nor the booklet offer a list of all the participating outlets. In a way that good as it forces you explore, but it can also be a pain to locate a booth you want to visit.

Buffets are for grazing and sampling, and this is the best way to explore the large festival area because you never know what you might find. Dishes are paid for in cash and prices range from $10 up. Some of delights we discovered on our wander last night included a lovely artesian french booth offering cones of cheese, ham’s and salami ($50-60). Among the delights in the hotel booth area were a tasty lamb shank and a delicious stuffed crab topped with melted cheese; or enjoy heart shaped meatloaf topped with gold leaf.

Locally it can be hard to find good bread, but several restaurants make their own and are showcasing this on their booths Ciak has nice fresh bread to go with it’s spicy sausages. While Bagoes is offering fresh bagels, bagel sandwiches.

There’s lots of desserts, one definitely to look out for is is egg custard served in a real egg shell. It’s not cheap $70 for 2, but it’s delicious – booth C204.

There’s also a stage offering a variety of live music through the festival.

Frustrations – there’s very little seating, and no shade! So if the sun’s out, bring some suntan cream and an umbrella because without any breeze Central Harbourfront can be very hot.

It’s outside, there’s food, wine, beer, live music… what’s not to like, have fun.

Wine & Dine Festival 2015
Date: 22-25 October, 2015
Venue: Central Harbourfront
Tickets: $30
More info:
22 October – 8-11:30pm
23-24 October – 12-11:30pm
25 October – 12-10pm
More images here

A Musical Trilogy of Fantasies – Princess Mononoke, Butterfly Lovers & Nodame Cantabile

hkmpo-trilogy

In childhood, many of us enjoyed Japanese anime and or listened to Chinese traditional stories recounted by our grandparents. As adults or kidadults a lot of us still enjoy Japanese manga and fantasy. They are art forms which recall our childhood, but also bring us to a world out of reality when we need it. Winnie Yin (印玉文), an acclaimed pipa (琵琶) musician presents, in collaboration with the HKMPO, three musical fantasies inspired by these art forms.

The concert will start with the Legend of Ashitaka, from Joe Hisaishi’s (久石譲) symphonic suite for Princess Mononoke (幽靈公主), an anime fantasy produced by Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎駿) about the struggle between the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans who consume its resources, involving the outsider Ashitaka and San, who was raised by wolves in the forest. “Mononoke” is a general term in Japanese for a spirit or monster. The performance features the opening of the suite which appears at the end of the anime.

The Butterfly Lovers Concerto originates from a Chinese legend about the love affair between Zhu Yingtai (祝英台) who attends class in disguise as a man, and Liang Shanbo (梁山伯) who develops a strong affinity for Zhu without knowing that she is a lady. After discovering that Zhu is a lady, Liang falls in love with her and they enjoy a short joyful period before Zhu’s parents arrange for her to marry a rich man. Liang dies of a broken heart. During the journey to her wedding, Zhu leaves the procession and throws herself into Liang’s grave. Their spirits turn into a pair of butterflies who fly away together. The concerto adapts melodies from the Chinese opera and folk songs about the legend. It is such a successful Chinese concerto that it is not only taken up by Chinese violinists and soloists of Chinese instruments but also by today’s great violinists such as Gil Shaham and Maxim Vengerov. Compared with the original violin concerto, He Zhanhao’s arrangement for pipa is usually played at a faster tempo offering a perfect showcase for Yin’s impeccable technique and natural expressiveness.

In Nodame Cantabile, Tomoko Ninomiya’s popular Japanese manga about Shinichi Chiaki, a meticulous musical genius and Nodame, a messy out-of-control conservatory student who prefers playing the piano by ear rather than reading the score. Shinichi, who has secret ambitions to become a conductor, meets Nodame by accident and quickly falls in love with her. With Nodame’s encouragement, Shinichi decides to take up the baton out of Japan despite his fear of flying due to an air accident when he was a kid. He enters an exciting conductor competition in which he has to conduct Dvořák’s From the New World while spotting “the errors” among a large number of orchestra players. He wins the gold medal at the competition, launching his international career. In the symphony, one can find rhythms from the composer’s motherland Bohemia, native American music and African-American spirituals while German classical masters’ influence is discernible (e.g. Scherzo from Beethoven’s Ninth vs Scherzo of Dvořák’s). Leonard Bernstein hailed it as a truly multinational masterpiece.

Winnie Yin 印玉文 (pipa)Performers:
Winnie Yin 印玉文 (pipa)
Kevin Wong 黃史琦 (conductor)
Hong Kong Metropolitan Philharmonic Orchestra (HKMPO) 香港都會愛樂管弦樂團

Programme:
Joe Hisaishi: Music from Princess Mononoke
Chen Gang/He Zhanhao: Butterfly Lovers Pipa Concerto
Antonín Dvořák: Symphony no. 9 in E minor, “From the New World”, op. 95

For more info, please visit www.facebook.com/hongkongmpo or write to [email protected]
Visit our event page on Facebook: www.facebook.com/events/873742062710671

A Musical Trilogy of Fantasies – Princess Mononoke, Butterfly Lovers & Nodame Cantabile
Hong Kong Metropolitan Philharmonic Orchestra
Date: 8pm, 20 October, 2015
Venue: HK City Hall, Concert Hall
Tickets: $200, $150, $90 from Urbtix

Irma @ The Vine Centre – 18 September, 2015

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Irma’s second visit to Hong Kong in 2015, saw a packed Vine Centre royally entertained as the singer who found fame on youtube showcased new songs and old favourites.
Click on any photo for the full gallery of images

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2015/Irma-The-Vine-Centre-2015/52054719_nm3hk5#!i=4363062074&k=V6SkhHF

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T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

The Waste Land

T.S. Eliot’s seminal poem, The Waste Land, comes to life in this new, dramatic adaptation.

Internationally renowned cellist David Pereira teams up with actor and Chinese University of Hong Kong professor Julian Lamb to bring you a fusion of music and spoken word which will appeal to aficionados of The Waste Land as well as those who have never encountered it.

T.S. Eliot’s haunting vision of a spiritually barren post-war Europe is brought to life in a performance which draws out the poem’s vast array of characters as well as its rich lyrical language. Dramatic presentations of The Waste Land are rare since it is often regarded as too difficult to perform. A performance of The Waste Land with live musical accompaniment is almost unprecedented.

The Waste Land is the most influential poem of the twentieth century. It is written in short, interconnected fragments, each one offering a glimpse of humans coming to terms with a world which they find increasingly confusing. For nearly a century, readers have been haunted by its images, amused by its comedy, and absorbed by its vast array of characters.

The music will feature passages of improvisation, original composition, and direct quotation from the work of some of the most important composers of the twentieth century, including Sibelius, Shostakovich, and Schoenberg.

“Julian Lamb and David Pereira bring clarity to ‘The Waste Land’,” Canberra Times

“An utterly inspiring performance,” The RiotAct, Canberra

The Waste Land
Shadow Players
When: 22-27 September
Where: Kwai Tsing Theatre, Black Box Theatre
Tickets: $230 ($170 Seniors, Students) from Urbtix
More info:
22-26 September – 8pm
26, 27 September – 4pm
Free Seating
For each purchase of 5-10 standard tickets 10% off, 11-15 standard tickets 15% off, 16+ standard tckets 20% off

Septiembre Mexicano

sept mexico

Experience Mexico during Septiembre Mexicano as The Consulate General of Mexico in Hong Kong organizes a series of art, culture, music and gastronomic activities, open to the public, to celebrate its 205th anniversary of independence.

Fashion
Mexican designer Carmen Rion, presents her latest textile designs at the “Renaissance of Fashion” event. Rion is also a fashion researcher and is well known for ‘rescuing’ traditional Mexican textiles and integrating them into her contemporary creations.
Carmen Rion
Date: 9am-5:45pm, 31 August – 25 September, 2015.
Venue: The Fashion Gallery, Polytechnic University, 11 Yuk Choi Rd, Hung Hom.
Tickets: Free

Food
Enjoy millenary dishes and 21st century Mexican haute cuisine as chef Jose Lazcarro prepares some of the most traditional dishes including: ceviche, shrimp agua chile, mole poblano, green pipian at Cafe Too and the Lobster Bar in the Island Shangri La. Chef Lazcarro worked with Alain Ducasse in Paris in 2009, then in the USA with Robert McCormick and is currently Executive Chef at Quinze in his hometown of Puebla.
Chef Jose Lazcarro
Date: 8-30 September 2015.
Venues: Lobster Bar and Grill, 6/F, Island Shangri-La; Cafe Too, 7/F, Island Shangri-La.

Art
Abstract artist Roberto Turnbull inaugurated his first solo exhibit of 26 artworks entitled Mexican Big Bang: Paintings by Roberto Turnbull at the HK Museum and Art Gallery, HK University earlier this month. Turnbull is a versatile artist comfortable in the realm of painting and sculpting; in the chaos of the flat abstraction, and in the order of three-dimensional geometry.
Mexican Big Bang
Roberto Turnbull
Date: 9 September – 29 November, 2015
Venue: Drake Gallery, HK Museum and Art Gallery, HK University
Tickets: Free

Film
Alamar (To the Sea, 2009), directed, written and produced, Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio, captures the unconditional love of a father for his son as they spend time together amid the stark beauty of unspoiled nature of the Banco Chinchorro coral reef before the son departs for Italy.

alamar

Alamar
Alamar (To the Sea, 2009), directed, written and produced, Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio, captures the unconditional love of a father for his young son as they spend time together living in a stilt house amid the stark beauty of unspoiled nature of the Chinchorro coral reef before the son departs for Italy.
Date: 7pm, 24 September, 2015
Venue: Global Lounge, G/F, Fong Shu Chuen Amenities Centre, HK University.
More info: +852-2511-3305 / [email protected]

Music
Ernesto Anaya is one of the most popular Mexican musicians of the last 30 years offers. His countryside roots combined with an operatic style create a very particular and original style of Mexican folkloric music. Anaya is a singer, composer, violinist, guitarist, pianist, and producer, as well as a jaranero or jarana player. The Jarana is a guitar-shaped instrument from the southern region of the state of Veracruz, Mexico.
Ernesto Anaya
Date: 27, 29 September
Venue: Orange Peel
Tickets: tbc

Septiembre Mexicano
More info: facebook.com/consulmexhk

Source: Consulate General of Mexico in Hong Kong

Eureka

Eureka - CCDC

Three Eureka Moments in One Show!
Now in their thirties, Victor Fung, Lai Tak-wai and Bruce Wong demonstrate their ideas in a series of new works. Three completely different choreographers share their eureka moment in diverse styles of contemporary dance.

If These Walls Could Talk
Identity X Relationship
Music starts. He and she fall in love at first sight.
They are a perfect match, but in a blink of the eye, someone else stands next to him.
Together, apart, death, rebirth.
Battles of the sexes, a glimpse into the complicated and ambiguous relationships between men and women – love turns to hate turns to love again and identities and feelings are bombarded over and over.

Choreography
Victor Fung: graduated from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) and The University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). He furthered his studies in choreography and completed his postgraduate studies at London Contemporary Dance School. He is currently conducting doctoral research with funding from Middlesex University and Dance4. In 2011, he established Victor Fung Dance, a platform through which his collaborative works with international dance artists are presented. He received the“Award for Young Artist” at the 2013 Hong Kong Arts Development Awards in recognition of his artistic achievement in dance. Recent performance credits include the Hollywood production 47 Ronin starring Keanu Reeves and Aida at Royal Albert Hall, his choreography for CCDC includes Fighter in Strip Teaser 2012.

Overwhelming
Humanity X Turbulence
Listen to your body through dance. Walk to the chaotic edge of the maze in your heart. Dancers reshape the form of ideas and inspirations, unveiling the humanity lurking under appearance. When we are going through pains and changes in the mist, should we follow the main road or find our own track?

Choreography
Lai Tak-wai: graduated from HKAPA majoring in modern dance. In 2002, he was awarded the Hong Kong Jockey Club Dance Fund Scholarship to further his studies at the National Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Paris. He then joined the Junior Ballet Contemporain in Paris for the 2002/03 season. Lai was a full-time dancer at Cloud Gate Dance Theatre in 2005 and was at CCDC from 2008 to 2014. At the 2013 Hong Kong Dance Awards he received the “Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer” award for his performance in In Search of the Grand View Garden. He is currently an independent choreographer and freelance dancer. His choreography includes Sleepless, Substitute and Timeline in It’s My Turn.

How to Become…
Kung Fu X Id
Practice is the pursuit of enlightenment – comprehension, realisation and full understanding. Martial arts and dance are pursuits of physical and mental advancement. In a cross-over between kung-fu and dance, Bruce Wong shares his pursuit of the inner-self with the audience. Wong has won champions in the martial arts champion Baguazhang and Neijia Quan at the Hong Kong Open Wushu Championships. This is his search to find a way to cleanse one’s soul.

Choreography
Bruce Wong: CCDC dancer Bruce Wong entered HKAPA in 1995, where he was awarded several scholarships and was chosen to represent the Academy on overseas tours during his studies. In 1998, he was awarded an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship to participate in the American Dance Festival in the US. He received the Hong Kong Jockey Club Dance Fund Scholarship to attend Hollins University in the US for a Master’s degree. In 2010, he was one of the few dance finalists worldwide to be selected for the prestigious Rolex Mentor & Protege Arts Initiative. His recent choreography includes The Legend and The Hero, Dress Me Down in Strip Teaser 2012 and Re/dis-connect in It’s My Turn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Vtj-RADws

Eureka
City Contemporary Dance Company
When: 18-20 September, 2015
Where: HK Cultural Centre, Studio Theatre
Tickets: $220, $160 from Urbtix
More info:
18-19 September – 8pm
19-20 September – 3pm

HK Tap Festival 2015

BC-Mag_Image-01a

Hong Kong Tap Festival 2015
18-26 September 2015
Honorary Advisor: Mandy Petty

RONxll (Hisao Ogatsu), who is regarded as one of the greatest tappers in Japan, is the Hong Kong Tap festival’s featured guest tapper. RONxll style is characterised by his great skill and dexterity. He has performed on many stages and in various movies, including his role as the choreographer and dancer in Zatoichi, directed by the well-known Japanese director Takeshi Kitano. In the movie RONxll astonishes the audience with a unique style of tap dancing wearing traditional Japanese wooden clogs. He’s also performed and participated in numerous tap shows and tap festivals, including Noise & Funk, a Broadway musical directed and choreographed by the tap master Savion Glover; Human Rhythm Project of Chicago Tap Festival; REVO TRAP Live at Hyogo Performing Arts Center; Tap Together of Taipei Tap Festival.

The Hong Kong Tap Festival 2015 (HKTF 2015) also presents guest workshop for tap dance lovers to join. There will be 15 classes in 3 consecutive days at CCDC Dance Centre, taught by three Japanese tap masters. Students can learn from the Festival’s featured guests, taking glimpses into their dancing and teaching. Aspire to enhance your understanding and knowledge of the global trend in tap dance? It’s something you shouldn’t miss!

ronGala Performances: Beat Me Tap
Venue: Sai Wan Ho Civic Centre Theatre
Date and time:
25/09/2015 (Fri五) 8pm#
26/09//2015 (Sat六) 3pm
26/09/2015 (Sat六) 8pm
Ticket Price : $180, $140*

#Meet-the-artist session on 25 Sept.
*Discount tickets available for senior citizens aged 60 or above, people with disabilities and the minder and full-time students.

Guest Tappers/Choreographers:
RONxII (Hisao Ogatsu) (JP)
PORI (Yuta Hori) (JP)
ton (Tomomi Kodota) (JP)
Dance Works (TW)
Hou-jiung “Little Eyes” Chen (TW)

Local Tappers/Choreographers:
Ken Kwok, Eve Leung, Tan- ki Wong, Calvin Tang, Marix Ho, To Chan, Rex Chiu, The Autistic Genius, Ani Wan, Vanessa Lee

Presented by: R&T (Rhythm & Tempo)
Artistic Director: Ken Kwok
Producer: Chi-wing Wong
Live Band: Patrick Lui
Technical Director: Benny Shaw
Deputy Stage Manager: Adonic Lo
Assistant Stage Manager: Gary Cheung
Sound Designer: CanDog
Lighting Designer: Adonic Lo
Graphic Designer: Wing-suet Lo
Video: C.PRODUCTION HOUSE
Ticketing: Man-yan Ho

Tickets are NOW available at URBTIX
Programme Enquiries: 6804 6297
Ticketing Enquiries: 3761 6661 (10am-8pm Daily)
Credit Card Telephone Booking: 2111 5999
Internet Booking: www.urbtix.hk
Mobile Ticketing App Booking: My URBTIX(Android and iPhone/iPad Versions)

*Participants of age 6 or above are welcome.
*The presenter reserves the right to substitute artists and change the programme should unavoidable circumstances make it necessary.
*For information of other HKTF 2015 events including guest workshops, sharing session and Fun Tap Jam, please check out our other promotional materials.
www.facebook.com/HKTAPFEST
www.RNTTAP.com

香港踢躂節2015
18-26/09/2015
榮譽顧問：敏迪貝蒂

大匯演＜拍・我・踢躂＞
地點： 西灣河文娛中心劇院
日期及時間:
25/09/2015 (Fri) 8pm#
26/09//2015 (Sat) 3pm
26/09/2015 (Sat) 8pm
票價： $180, $140*

#9月25日演出後設有演後藝人談。
*設有六十歲或以上高齡人士、殘疾人士及看護人、全日制學生票半價優惠。

嘉賓舞者：
RONxII (小勝久生 Hisao Ogatsu) (日本)
PORI (堀雄太 Yuta Hori) (日本)
ton (門田巴魅Tomomi Kodota) (日本)
舞工廠舞團 (台灣)
陳厚均（小眼睛） (台灣)
本地編創舞者：
郭偉傑、梁美嘉、王丹琦、鄧偉豐、何威智、陳濤、趙浩然、結界達人、尹巧茵、李佳齡

主辦: R&T (Rhythm & Tempo)
藝術總監：郭偉傑
監製: 黃志榮
現場音樂：雷柏熹
技術總監：邵少威
執行舞台監督：羅兆鏵
助理舞台監督：張繼業
音響：夏恩蓓
燈光設計：羅兆鏵
平面設計：羅永雪
錄像： C.PRODUCTION HOUSE
票務： 賀文欣

門票現正在城市售票網發售。
節目查詢： 6804 6297
票務查詢： 3761 6661 (10am-8pm每日Daily)
信用卡電話購票： 2111 5999
網上購票： www.urbtix.hk
流動購票應用程式購票： My URBTIX(Android and iPhone/iPad Versions)

*適合6歲或以上人士參與。
*如遇特殊情況，主辦機構保留更換節目及表演者的權利。
*其他有關香港踢躂節2015的活動如大師工作坊、分享會及即興踢躂匯，請留意我們其他的宣傳刊物。
www.facebook.com/HKTAPFEST
www.RNTTAP.com

HK Tap Festival 2015 Gala Performances
Date: 25-26 September, 2015
Venue: Sai Wan Ho Civic Centre, Theatre
Tickets: $180 from Urbtix
More info:
25.09.2015 (Fri) 8pm
26.09.2015 (Sat) 8pm, 3pm

Udderbelly Festival 2015-16

udderbelly

The Udderbelly Festival to be held in conjunction with The Great European Carnival (4 December 2015 to 14 February 2016) has already released tickets to some great shows including comedians Rory Bremner, Jason Manford, musicians Gobsmacked, Michael Winslow and shows such as The Boy with Tape on His Face and The Elephant in the Room.

Udderbelly Festival
Date: 4th December 2015 – 14th February 2016
Venue: Central Harbourfront
Tickets: various