Zuni Icosahedron (Hong Kong)
Danny Yung
Cedric Chan
Martin Choy*, Sylvie Cox, JH, Ellen Kong, Dan Tse
Steve Hui (aka Nerve)
Benny Woo
Mak Kwok Fai
Chan Wing Kit
Chow Chun Yin
Zeta Chan
Johnny Sze
Chan On Ki, Megan Hung
Bonnie Chan
Kenneth Chan, Chim Man Lung
Megan Hung
Dan Tse, Wu Zonglun
Lee Ken Tsai
Coco Cheung
Ricky Cheng
Dino+Hayman@Singular
Cheung Chi Wai, Vic Shing
Crystal Pang, Issac Chan
Wong Yu Tak, Yan Tsz Long
In Search of New China by John Wong (2019)
(Zuni’s Experimental Theatre Restructuring Images Series
Original Director/ Concept: Danny Yung)
Suite in A Minor, RCT 1: No. 1 Prélude
Jean-Philippe Rameau, Sheep on the Slope in Interrupted Dream
Shen Yili (Shanghai), Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major
Ludwig van Beethoven
Dream
Carrie Koo
Joseph Koo
Doe Ching
Pak Supono (Yogyakarta)
Wong Yuewai
Jacky Chan
Doris Kan
Luka Wong
Ho Yin-Hei
Ricky Cheng
Stephy Yeung
About the performance:
The Interrupted Geng Zi Dream (2020) is honoured to be entitled as "A Featured Work of IATC(HK) Critics Awards 2020". This year, we are delighted to bring it back on stage with a twist - 2 or 3 Things About Interrupted Dream is developed based on the former production's structure and elements. It is also the extension of the Interrupted Dream series as part of the Danny Yung Experimental Theatre.In 2021, the pandemic certainly affected our society, our culture, especially our culture of communications, and invoked our deep reflection on art and the development of our society. That presented us opportunities to carry out dialectic discourses on our experimentation and its creative process, as well as allowing us to examine the very nature of art, which includes the evaluation of the virtuality and the realness in the context of the present technological advancement. The pandemic reminds us of the disconnection between our developed society and its respective environmental ecology, so much so that the health and education systems are not on par with our needs in reality. The interactions between the system and technology become an important issue. To be staged at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in July this year, 2 or 3 Things About Interrupted Dreamwhich is developed from the excerpt In Praise of the Portrait of the kunqu (opera) Peony Pavilion created in Ming dynasty, aims at getting inspired by looking at a "portrait" out of the frame/context. What is different is that, today, we are trying to examine the history by experimenting the migration of a painted portrait into the forms of "photo", "film" and "reality TV". That is to explore and evaluate how theatre being a framework and the vehicle of communications, so as to reflect on how the notion of theatre being challenged by the ever-available public space/media with the aid of current technology. Seemingly, the portrait used in the Peony Pavilion metaphors idol worship, while our simile is to discuss the virtuality and the realness of the media in a theatre play. The director says: “The Return of Soul at the Peony Pavilion, written by dramatist Tang Xianzu in 1598, included Scene 10 - Interrupted Dream. The scene provided us significant rooms for imagination and the vicissitudes of life presented in and outside the theatre. Among the variety of symbols and narratives, we went with the flow to look for individual and collective imaginative space.Peony Pavilion was banned several times 450 years back. Every time it was restaged, it turned into even more indulged and plaintively showy. Now, all of us, please look at this theatre, look at its confines and taboos, and attend to the way we see and be seen in Interrupted Dream”.
Zuni Icosahedron
Founded in 1982, Zuni Icosahedron is the epitome of experimental theater in Hong Kong. A Hong Kong based international experimental performing arts company, Zuni is a non-profit charitable cultural organization. Zuni is one of the nine major professional performing arts companies in Hong Kong directly supported by the government, and a venue partner of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre since 2009. As a premier experimental art company, Zuni has produced more than 200 original productions of theatre and multimedia performances, and been invited to more than 80 cities around the globe for cultural exchange and performances. With the support of its members, and under the leadership of the Co-Artistic Directors, Danny Yung and Mathias Woo, Zuni has been active in video, sound experimentation and installation arts, as well as in the area of arts education, arts criticism, cultural policy research and international conferences and cultural exchanges. Over the last two decades, Zuni has been undertaking the mission of developing and preserving Intangible Cultural Heritages (Performing Arts).
Danny Yung
An experimental art pioneer and one of the most influential artists in Hong Kong, Yung is a founding member and Co-Artistic Director of Zuni Icosahedron. In the past 40 years, Yung involved extensively in multifarious fields of the arts, including theatre, cartoon, film and video, visual and installation art. In the past 40 years, Yung has been involved in over 100 theatre productions as director, scriptwriter, producer and/or stage designer. His theatre works were staged in cities across the world, including Tokyo, Yokohama, Toga, Singapore, Taipei, Shanghai, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Brussels, Berlin, Munich, London, Lisbon, Rotterdam and New York. In 2008, Yung created the commissioned theatre work by Hong Kong Arts Festival, Tears of the Barren Hill which reflects on the innovation of traditional Chinese theater and the institution of cultural exchange. It won him the Music Theatre NOW Award given by the International Theatre Institute of UNESCO. At the Shanghai Expo in 2010, he presented in cooperation with the renowned Japanese theatre director Makoto Sato The Tale of the Crested Ibis as a cultural exchange project, which combined for the first time the elements of Noh and Kun theatres, as well as traditional arts and cutting-edge (robot) technology. Yung developed on the concept of the Crested Ibis, or Toki, and has curated the annual Toki Festiva” since 2012, as an effort to enrich young Kun performers’ experience, and to promote exchanges between contemporary and traditional performing arts in Asian regions. Yung is among the pioneers of Hong Kong experimental film and video artists. His short film, video and installation art pieces have been shown in Berlin, New York, London, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, Tokyo and Hong Kong since 1980s. His Tian Tian Xiang Shang conceptual comics, figurines and sculptures have been exhibited in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Taipei, Singapore, Ann Arbor, Paris, Milan, Washington DC, Seattle, Toronto and Mexican City and etc.Yung keeps a close watch on the arts and cultural policy and education development in Hong Kong as well as in the Asia Pacific regions. Yung currently serves as Chairperson of the Hong Kong–Taipei–Shenzhen–Shanghai City-to-City Cultural Exchange Conference, and a member of Design Council of Hong Kong. He was appointed the inaugural Dean’s Master Artist in Drama of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in 2013. He currently sits on the Management Board of HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity, the advisory boards of Department of Cultural Studies of Hong Kong Lingnan University, School of Drama of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Cultural and Heritage Management of City University of Hong Kong. In 2009, Yung was bestowed the Merit Cross of the Order of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his achievement and contributions on cultural exchanges between Germany and Hong Kong. In 2000, Yung organized the Festival of Vision – an 11-week program of cross-cultural festivals and conferences held in Berlin (Haus der Kulturen der Welt) and Hong Kong (Tamar Site) respectively. The festivals engaged the participation of over 1,000 artists and cultural practitioners from 35 cities in Asia and Europe. In 2014, commissioned by the 48th Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Yung designed the “Gateway – Tian Tian Xiang Shang” broad-scale flower plaque bamboo installation, featuring the Lingnan cultural heritage of flower plaque. The installation, which measures 35 meter broad, 10 meter high and 6 meter deep, stands on the National Mall of Washington DC during the Festival.
