Entitled A Feast of Creativity! Bon Appétit! and adopting the concept “All around the city, our stages, our patrons, our artists”, the 16th Macau Fringe Festival looks to offer an arts banquet for an entire city.
2017’s banquet includes a hairdresser’s salon turned into a musical. A recreation of an entertainment house at Beco da Felicidade and a funeral at the Ruins of St. Paul’s in the middle of the night. Organized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau, The Macau Fringe Festival runs from 13 to 22 January 2017 and features 23 programmes at multiple venues.
Zuò Zuò Tea House reveals the solitude and secrets of Rua da Felicidade by combining elements of dance and music and digging into the history of Macau’s red-light district. Mobile Kitchen invites people from the cultural field to take the role of chefs and share their cuisine, whether refined or homely, and encourage the public to savour the flavour of life.
In Antiwords, produced by Czech Republic Spitfire Company, two actresses drink beer after beer, bragging and arguing in an explosive mix of nonsensical humour and imagination. Circolando’s Night which debuts on the first day of the Festival features a trio of men who through their intensely physical and emotional expression ask questions of language and aesthetics.
In Good Hands, by Catherine Ireton, is a live musical set in a hairdressing salon about secrets and trust. The Magnificent 4 uses the human body as an instrument and a choreography that makes use of the legs and hand-clapping in creating a unique tempo.
In 5 Women, Dutch choreographer Kevin Pollak joins hands with five dancers at a birthday party set in a café where, through dance and movement, secrets that cannot be shared emerge. The Smooth Life is a puppet show set to Arabian music that tells the true story of the life of the director Husam Abed in a Palestinian refugee camp.
Funeral for the Living, directed by Daisuke Sagawa and performed by Japanese company Theatre Moments, debates issues of life and death. While The Other Side of the Sacred produced by Macao choreographer Candy Kuok in cooperation with Nina Dipla takes the audience on a journey that mixes dance, poetry and music.
In Weaving Landscape: Night Tide, the Associação de Arte e Cultura – Comuna de Pedra use different materials as a medium of creativity, making use of body language and installation art to explore the relationship between body, fabrics and all living things.
There’s also a range of extended programmes including Thematic talks: Foreign Theatre – Body, Memory and Labour and Fringe Reviews 2017, where artists and performing groups in different fields will share their creation experiences. For the full programme see www.macaucityfringe.gov.mo, tickets are on sale now from Macauticket.
Macau Fringe Festival
Date: 13-22 January 2017
Venue: various
Tickets: MacauTicket
More info: www.macaucityfringe.gov.mo