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The Performance Ensemble and Arts Options Limited Collaboration in Hong Kong

Published 30 Oct 2024

The Performance Ensemble & Arts Option. A Leeds/Hong Kong Collaboration

Blog from Rebecca Po Arts Option Limited Hong Kong and Alan Lyddiard from The Performance Ensemble UK 

In the Spring of 2023 as part of Leeds Year of Culture, The Performance Ensemble (TPE) delivered their biggest project to date. ‘1001 Stories, A Takeover of Leeds Playhouse by Older People’, was a mass participation project, a revolutionary two-week takeover. It gave older people the opportunity to perform, exhibit and express their desires and concerns and share stories from throughout their lives. 1001 Stories, from people over 60, were collected and are stored in a digital archive  entitled ‘Radical Acts of Being Human’

The project was a collaboration between The Performance Ensemble, Leeds Playhouse, Leeds 2023, Leeds Museums and Galleries, and Leeds Older Peoples Forum. It ran from the 24th of April till the 7th of May 2023 and is something we are very proud to have achieved.

A huge range of activities took place throughout the two weeks including symposiums, workshops, bread-baking, dancing, rollerskating, circus skills, choirs, storying telling and much much more, plus a range of local, national and international performances created by wide range of older people, creating art with the experience of age.

View the whole schedule of events here

Photo David Lindsay: Opening event 1001 Stories take over of Leeds Playhouse by Older People

 

The international events included over 35 visitors from China and Hong Kong who presented a number of performances including ‘Cormorants’, a world premiere solo performance by award-winning Hong Kong cultural leader Augustine Mok Chiu Yu; Original songs from the Elders Choir from the Centre of Community Cultural Development plus work from Chinese artist Cai Shugun who had created a project with older people from Guangzhou.

 

One group who visited were Arts’ Option Limited; who brought the piece ‘Embrace the Tastes of Life’ a story-telling performance. Through the success of the project a strong relationship was developed with Arts Options Limited.  The group watched The Performance Ensembles show Sinfonia, the centerpiece of the festival, and were inspired. They invited TPE’s Artistic Director, Alan Lyddiard and Choreographer Tamara McLorg  to create a new piece of theatre, ‘Whispers of Life’, with their members at the first Hong Kong Creative Ageing Arts Festival.

 

The first Hong Kong Creative Aging Arts Festival was held from September the 25th to October 6th, 2024, at the Jockey Club Creative Arts Center. This event was part of the professional performing arts training program organised by Arts’ Options Limited, with the support of Link Together Initiatives. The program offers professional drama and performing arts training to individuals aged 55 and above, encouraging them to continuously pursue their dreams and create opportunities to develop a second career later in life.

The mission of the Hong Kong Creative Aging Arts Festival is to allow the public to witness the remarkable talents of older artists and professional performers, providing them with opportunities to shine and showcase their abilities to a broader audience. Arts’ Options gathered over 100 creative aging artists and performers, aged 58 to 86, from various art forms to showcase their work. Over the twelve days, almost 4,000 audiences participated in over 30 performances and events during the festival.

 

“Whispers of Life” was performed as a part of the festival on the 5th and 6th of November 2024. The performance blended narrative, movement, and dance to explore the stories of older people and a search for those seemingly insignificant moments of life that become meaningful. The cast of perfomers, aged 58 and older, had beautiful stories to tell, working with them was an inspiring experience.

Photo: Dicky Wong Whispers of Life 1st Hong Kong Festival of Creative Ageing

 

The festival highlights three main art form: performing arts at black box, exhibitions, live music, and interactive workshops.

 

1.Performing arts

Five diverse performances were held in the black box theatre of JCCAC (Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre), which included two Cantonese dramas, one musical theatre piece, one a cappella performance, and one dance performance.

The festival kicked off with the opening performance, “King Li: The Final Escape,” a Cantonese drama directed by Ms. Brenda Chan. This piece draws inspiration from William Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” but is set in the context of an elderly home.

Three performers from Singapore presented ‘Sing Sing Sing Ladies,’ a vibrant music theatre piece portraying the lives of Singaporean women, directed by Singaporean director Mr. Garrick Wong.

Yat Po Singer and Unlock Dance, both companies offered training programs for older individuals for many years, and they also serve as trainers for our program. Yat Po Singer led their older A cappella performers in singing classic songs, while Unlock Dance guided older performers in leveraging the games they played when they were young, using movement and rhythm to present them in the show

And finally the performances of ‘Whispers of. Life ‘Whisper of Life,’ directed by Alan Lyddiard with choreography by Tamara McLorg from of TPE and live music by Ho Pak Chuan from Hong Kong.

 

2.        Exhibition

There are two exhibitions held at the JCCAC’s exhibition hall and the 2nd floor of the podium. The visual arts exhibition, ‘Forever Blissful Days with Arts,’ features 11 visual artists. Their work spans various mediums, including painting, calligraphy, street art, tailoring, fashion design, and traditional weaving by Hakka artisans, curated by Ms. Evelyna Liang.

Additionally, a special photography exhibition, ‘Timeless Flow,’ curated by Mr. Alvin Leung, showcases a collection from 15 older photographers

 

3. Live Music, Special Monologue Show, and Workshops

At the podium of JCCAC, there are live music performances by the 1011 Band and Kilomega, as well as two monologue shows where performers will cook and serve tea live, creating an immersive artistic experience. Additionally, there are workshops on stop motion animation, movie making, and dance.

 

Following the festival the collaboration between TPE and Arts’ Option was further developed with a collaboration for the  British Council Hong. Kong initiative The Sparks Festival The companies created ‘Bench Encounters’ Inspired by “The Friendship Bench” by psychiatrist Dixon Chibanda, in Zimbabwe, “Bench Encounters” is a multimedia project of pre-recorded films and a live performance. The piece aimed to capture the moments of life that although may appear small and insignificant hold great amounts of meaning. The core idea is that by listening to the real-life stories of older people and how they have overcome their struggles, younger people can learn the skills to cope in similar situations.

 

The pre-recorded films document a series of conversations between Chinese and British people on a bench in different locations in Leeds and Hong Kong.The live performance, took place at the AIRSIDE on 20 October 2024, displaying conversations between seven pairs of a young and and older person sitting on a bench to showcase the power of stories shared by older and young people.

 

The Leeds/Hong Kong Project was funded by Arts’ Option, LInkInitiative, British Council and The Baring Foundation

The Performance is a National Portfolio Organisation funded by Arts Council England and Leeds City Council

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