Hong Kong Ballet’s online dance festival: turn(it)out

Hong Kong Ballet offers two-and-a-half weeks of dance online, the digital turn(it)out festival, and it is free for everyone.

The dance festival will explore ballet's role in our modern world and will be available for streaming on the Hong Kong Ballet (HKB) website from 18 March until 4 April 2021.

The festival features five(by)six, a programme of five contemporary ballets by six international dance-makers.

Grappling with the role of ballet in the modern world, the Holland-based American choreographer Stephen Shropshire begins a three-year artistic residency with HKB with Handelwerk, a new work set to music by Handel.

HKB's Artistic Director Septime Webre's presents the world premiere of Second Movement which brings together two dancers in a duet with music by Mozart. An excerpt from Nguyen Ngoc Anh's Beyond The Line, a fusion of dance forms that symbolise strength and resilience to overcome personal challenges, premieres in Hong Kong.

The programme also features an award-winning piece by the choreographic duo from Hong Kong, Justyne Li and Wong Tan-ki. Set to Philip Glass' driving score, their Galatea & Pygmalion retells the classic Greek myth. The last piece is by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, the ‘physically charged' ballet Sombrerisimo features six male leads and their incredibly malleable bowler hats in a sensual and innovative work.

On 19 March is The Orpheus Cabaret, a collaboration between seven HKB emerging choreographers and a team of The University of Hong Kong creative writers

The classic Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice gets a new twist in a ‘dance cabaret online'. As this event will be conducted on Zoom it requires advance registration.

Ballet Classics for Children: Cinderella returns online for an audience of all ages. Choreography is by Septime Webre, based on an original concept and script by Yuri Ng and Rick Lau. The hour-long adaptation has subtitles in English and Cantonese.

BINGE-WORTHY, is a collection of short videos from the Hong Kong Ballet video archive with excerpts from the classical and contemporary repertoire

Other activities for both adults and children, include Open Company Class, Ballet Barre Classes, an interactive Cross Training for Dancers series, MASTERCLASS! series, and ballet-blah-blah-blah. Details on the company website.

Top photo: Dancers (from left) Garry Corpuz, Chen Zhiyao, photography by Conrad Dy-Liacco

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.