I hear people complaining about a lack of art in Hong Kong all the time. But then the annual Arts Festival comes around, and they don't even go to see any of the shows.
Well, as Krusty and I can now attest, there is most definitely not a lack of art in Hong Kong. I can't count the number of gallery openings we have been to, art walks we have been on and indie film screenings we have missed. But back to the arts festival.
First we went to see a French girl from our group of friends perform in Agnes of God, the play by John Pielmeier. The story is about a young nun who is found unconscious in her room with a strangled foetus in her waste paper basket, and the pschiatric investigation that ensues before she appears in court for manslaughter/murder. You can imagine how happy Krusty was that I asked him to leave early from work, turn his crackberry off and watch a nun give birth...
Our friend was playing Agnes, the young innocent virgin who is questioned about her pregnancy and birth, and apart from a smoky voice that told more of late nights in Wan Chai than quiet afternoons in the convent, she was absolutely perfect. The theatre it was playing in was tiny, just 50 seats of which only about 25 were filled (which made the lady shaking an aluminium tin of mints behind me all the more disrespectful), and we could feel every tremor in her voice and see every tear on her cheek. The tall, mannish, court-apppinted psychiatrist and deliciously bossy yet vulnerable Mother Superior were also outstanding, and we really got carried away with them in the story. Every slap of the floor by the birthing nun made my seat vibrate and I couldn't believe that this girl, who I had last seen dressed up as a thundercat on our rooftop had so successfully become a nun. I definitely want to see the film now.
The next stop on the art train was an Alice in Wonderland ballet set to music by Tchaikovsky and performed by the English National Ballet. The tickets were given to us by my favourite lecturer from Hong Kong University via her son, whom I work with, and we were so lucky as to have two empty seats in front of us to see everything clearly.
The ballet was suitably childish but engaging too, with colourful costumes and men and women looking like they had smuggled bricks into their tights... No not there, down where their calf muscles were. In fact the good thing about kids' ballet is that most of the "packages" are hidden away from impressionable eyes, so our own eyes could concentrate on something else than the dancers' crotches. (Am I the only one who finds this difficult to do in "adult" representations?)
We spent the first act with Krusty whispering in my ear "ballet really isn't my thing", and "I think I have learnt my lesson", but when I forced him to go back in for act 2, he started whispering with increasing regularity "I'm really enjoying this" and "this is amazing". Good job, too - we are going back to the ballet in Beijing next weekend...
To round off a week of artistic satisfaction, my office held a KFC-off today - three boys had to eat a bucket of chicken each, with the first one to finish becoming the Office KFC Champion.
Who said the arts were dead?!
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