The opening ceremony of the 26th Macao Arts Festival (MAF), organised by the Cultural Affairs Bureau, will be held on 1 May at 7.40pm at the lobby of the Macao Cultural Centre. The 26th MAF kicks off with the Asian premiere of Lied Ballet by the Centre choreógraphique national de Tours – Direction Thomas Lebrun, from France, presented in two consecutive nights. On the opening night, the choreographer of Lied Ballet Thomas Lebrun will dance with the public after the show at the Solo What You Want? and Bal party to be held at the Macao Cultural Centre Art Square where public participation is welcome.
The 26th MAF features 30 extraordinary shows and exhibitions and over 100 activities including the Festival Outreach Programme. Amongst them is the spectacular Lied Ballet, created specially by Lebrun for the 2014 Avignon Festival (France). The harmony and complementariness of the dance’s elegant movements and live music create an enchanting and brilliant dance piece.
The 26th MAF proceeds with a series of heavyweight shows including the musical Dream of Journey to the West, which combines traditional Chinese music and theatre. Incorporating elements from opera, musical, theatre and Chinese opera, this show introduces the musical genre to traditional Chinese music through the exquisite interpretation of the Macao Chinese Orchestra and the detailed portrayal of its singers highlighting the unique style of Chinese music; the performance Kun Opera Excerpts brings together classics like The Peony Pavilion performed by the Jiangsu Performing Arts Group Kun Opera Theatre, with their truly exceptional touching and smooth singing; the commissioned work Aerodynamics choreographed by Taiwan’s “super dancer” Lin Wen-Chung, who used the principle of aerodynamics from aeronautical science to transform the body vocabulary of east and west in a competition between muscles and gravity, gives the audience unlimited room for imagination. Resulting from the dual representativeness and the flux between dialogue and dance, the closing show, Trust, is jointly performed by actors from theSchaubühne am Lehniner Platz theatre and dancers from the Anouk van Dijk dance company and tells the story of the collapse of human relationships brought about by the distrust that resulted from the financial crash.
The programme information of the 26th Macao Arts Festival is available at www.icm.gov.mo/fam and ticket reservations can be made through tel. no. 28555555.