Exit the dragon

You won’t find your mother’s favourite Teochew opera at the seventh annual Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts, says Cai Jing – witness instead some of the world’s finest contemporary Chinese performances


Dependant's day. The Village documents life in Taiwan's migrant settlements

The words ‘Chinese arts festival’ tend to conjure certain expectations in local audiences. Dialect operas with stars from China and/or Hong Kong; the Singapore Chinese Orchestra playing cheesy New Year tunes; a performance of a classic story like Journey to the West – some might even assume all three. Although this year’s Huayi performances will indeed feature Chinese singing stars – in fact, one of the world’s foremost kun opera masters, Shi Xiaomei, will perform in Tears of Barren Hill – there will be no traditional Chinese operas. Instead, producer Mimi Yee’s impressive line-up focuses on modernity. ‘It’s a festival of arts featuring Chinese artists, rather than a Chinese arts festival,’ clarifi es Yee. ‘We aim to have shows for everyone, whether ticketed or otherwise.’

It’s obvious why Design for Living by Edward Lam Dance Theatre is the headliner for the festival: it stars Golden Horse award winner Sylvia Chang and Taiwanese drama star Joe Cheng. This is a rare stage role for Chang, a renowned actress/director, while Cheng has legions of adoring female fans. Meanwhile, director Edward Lam is considered one of the greatest creative talents in Hong Kong – stars such as Andy Lau, Kelly Chen and Gigi Leung are queuing up to work with him. This show – about a female boss’s pursuit of love, wealth and power – premiered in Shenzhen in late 2008, and we’ll get to see it before audiences in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The other big show, The Village (pictured top), is co-written and co-directed by big names Stan Lai and Wang Wei Zhong. Lai is most famous for his epic and very entertaining Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, which played to full houses at Huayi 2007, while Wang is the brains behind top Taiwanese TV shows like American Idol-style competition One Million Stars. Wang is also a second-generation resident of a dependents’ village, one of the settlements established for Chinese immigrants to Taiwan in the late 1940s. The steady march of urbanisation in Taiwan means these villages are slowly disappearing, and Wang, determined to preserve their culture, went to Lai to try to convince him to do a play that would serve as an archive of their traditions. It took two years before Lai finally agreed. ‘To create a play, I have to be especially touched by the theme,’ says Lai. ‘One day, I heard some stories that Wang had already retold several times, but this time I suddenly knew it could be done…writing and producing The Village required little effort, because the real stories they’re based on are interesting to begin with.’



If you prefer a more experimental type of performance, Tongue’s Memory of Home (pictured above) by the Zuhe Niao (literally, ‘Bird Ensemble’) collective is a visceral physical theatre piece exploring the tongue and the wealth of meaning it produces. ‘Many Chinese hide their tongues, refusing to acknowledge its existence,’ explains Zuhe Niao’s founder, Zhang Xian. ‘Especially after the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese lost their own tongues, as all individual expressions became community-based expressions.’ Thus, one of the key issues Zhang explores in this piece is whether man still owns his body when someone else has control of his tongue.

A personal musical favourite in the festival is Chinese Opera Meets Animation, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s collaboration with the China Academy of Art. SCO maestro Tsung Yeh has worked with Chen Qiang Bing to produce a truly inspired piece in which the orchestra backs two Peking Opera singers, who perform live to animated excerpts from classic Chinese stories like Madam White Snake and The Romance of Three Kingdoms. Don’t expect common cartoons, though – each excerpt is a work of art in itself. For example, the Madam… piece has been created in stop-motion sand animation, while The Romance… segment is in the Chinese ink-brush style.

If rock and pop music is more your bag, In::music has five of the best contemporary acts from Taiwan and China, including country/roots band WonFu and popular mainland singer Cao Fang. There will also be free performances at the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre and the Esplanade Concourse, but expect a battle for seats – audiences are expected to arrive as early as 4pm for evening shows. And yes, there will be a performance of Journey to the West at the festival, but even this classic will be given a fresh spin by new puppet troupe Paper Monkey. Expect multiple endings to the story, depending how the kids want the Monkey King to destroy the White Bone Fiend – the literal translation for the show’s Mandarin title is ‘Journey to the West: Beating the White Bone Fiend Three Times’.

The Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts 2009 runs from 30 Jan to 8 Feb at the Esplanade.
See here for further information. Tickets available from SISTIC.