Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts 2023 has live international acts for the first time in two years
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Godot Theatre Company is presenting Art, starring (from left) Pu Hsueh-liang, Tseng Kuo-cheng and Chu Chung-heng.
PHOTO: ESPLANADE – THEATRES ON THE BAY
SINGAPORE – International acts return to the Esplanade’s Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts as headliners for the first time in two years.
Tickets for the annual festival, which runs from Jan 27 to Feb 5, go on sale from Thursday.
The Esplanade’s senior producer Delvin Lee, 43, says: “We have put in a lot of effort to curate a festival that is both accessible and fun.”
Despite inflation and the goods and services tax increase, ticket prices have remained the same, starting at $38 and topping out at $138 for the headlining acts. There will also be free performances at the performing arts centre.
The festival will open with a splashy celebrity cast in Godot Theatre Company’s Mandarin adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s hit play Art. The Taiwanese production stars actors-hosts Chu Chung-heng, Tseng Kuo-cheng and Pu Hsueh-liang as three male friends who fall out when one of them purchases a hideously expensive work of modern art.
Another headliner from Taiwan is contemporary dance outfit Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, which will be presenting artistic director Cheng Tsung-lung’s 13 Tongues. The work draws from Cheng’s childhood growing up in Taipei’s Wan Hua district, the oldest neighbourhood in the city, and takes inspiration from the raucous temple festivals in the area.
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre will perform 13 Tongues, created by artistic director Cheng Tsung-lung.
Two very different musical acts from Hong Kong will appeal to different demographics.
The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, one of the leading Chinese orchestras in the world, will present a crowd-pleasing Chinese New Year programme filled with familiar favourites. Tri Ka Tsai – A Uniquely Trilingual Hong Kong Cabaret is a younger, more cosmopolitan offering from three young performers who capture the experience of growing up trilingual in song and dance.
The new Singtel Waterfront Theatre will host The Drought Goddess: Dream Of The World from rising Taiwan company La Cie MaxMind. The production uses dance, music and masks to tell the ancient Chinese myth of Hanba, the goddess of drought.
Home-grown talent Oliver Chong will be restaging his adaptation of Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe’s Every Brilliant Thing. The work, which deals with themes of depression and suicide, sold out its run at 2022’s Huayi.
Mr Lee says the new staging will be different, taking into account the relaxation of safe management measures which limited audience interaction and sizes for its first run.
Book it/Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts
Where: Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, 1 Esplanade Drive
When: Jan 27 to Feb 5, various times
Admission: Tickets from $38
Info: www.esplanade.com
