The theme of the 29th Macao Arts Festival, which runs from 27 April to 31 May, is “Origin” as the festival’s programme looks to broaden audiences’ thinking about life as well as have them recall and ponder on the core meaning of life.
Das Kapital by the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre opens the festival. A new version of Karl Marx’s grand classic – created in celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth – it incorporates elements of Macau’s and looks to illustrate the duality of capital through black humour. The festival closing production is Cloud Gate 2‘s 13 Tongues, a dance, music and folklore show.
Organised by the Cultural Affairs Bureau this year’s festival features 26 programmes grouped across 7 categories: Thematic Highlights: Origin; Groundbreakers: Connection; Cross-Disciplinary Creations: Theatre; Family Entertainment; Quintessence of Tradition; Melodious Music and Exhibitions. Plus an outreach programme aimed at promoting arts in the community.
Japanese playwright Tadashi Suzuki presents his adaptation of The Trojan Women which showcases the misery and desolation of the post-war period; while renowned Korean theatre group Sadari Movement Laboratory renders its adaptation of Kafka’s classical work The Trial to explore the definition of crime with unique body movements and language. Emerging Filipino choreographer Eisa Jocson, who has been performing in Europe, presents a work that examines the feminine body and gender politics; while Subject to_change from the United Kingdom introduces its highly-acclaimed work Home Sweet Home, allowing participants to build their cardboard houses and form a community.
Local Macanese artists join hands with European and Asian artists in the performances in the “Groundbreakers: Connection” category. Dirks Theatre Arts Association, in collaboration with an Irish director and its international actors team, presents their adaptation of The Night just before the Forest by famed French playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès. The play Sunset at the Shipyards by Dream Theatre Association tells the history of the local shipbuilding industry while Migration is documentary theatre from the Macau Experimental Theatre that features Indonesian migrant workers.
Tickets for the 29th Macau Arts Festival are onsale now from Macau Ticket, unfortunately there are no ferry packages available to reduce the cost of attending. Full details of the programme are in the event diary and you can find out more from the festival website www.icm.gov.mo/fam/29/en/
