The Long Artistic Journey

In 2023, the 33^rd Macao Arts Festival takes the theme “The Long Artistic Journey” and aims at promoting innovative expressions of our era through a range of selected exceptional art programmes, inviting the public to appreciate the beauty of art and look to the future with both a local focus and a global vision, while also exploring the diverse aspects of human existence reflected in different artistic genres. Inspired by the compass, the key visual of the event this year communicates the concept of “guiding the road forward and lighting up the hearts” encouraging the public to take a life journey with art to enjoy brighter landscapes ahead.

The Macao Arts Festival this year will kick off with the Rite of Spring, a production by well-known Chinese dancer, Yang Liping. Numerous impressive revivals of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring have been staged since its debut in Paris over a century ago. With this production jointly created with a range of international artists and with years of choreographic experience, Yang seeks to make artistic breakthroughs, combining Western and Eastern elements.

Chinese stage director Liu Fangqi, who is known for his blockbuster plays, will add some heart-warming moments to the Macao Arts Festival in May with his adaptation of one of the three masterpieces by Keigo Higashino – The Miracles of the Namiya General Store. This meticulous production impresses the audience with its fantastical story, heart-warming music and soothing performances, and has even received an inscription from the original author: “I like those who are troubled and also those who are perplexed”, which soothes the unsettled minds of this era.

As normal travel overseas has resumed, the Macao Arts Festival has taken the lead to join hands with the Portuguese Contemporary Dance Company, with the renowned Portuguese choreographers Vasco Wellenkamp and Miguel Ramalho transforming the verses of Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen into dance routines, making lives and souls sparkle through the dancers’ body movements..

Despite many obstacles along the journey, one will definitely reach one’s destination with an unwavering spirit. Masterpieces by famed artists that were unable to be staged in Macao due to the pandemic will finally delight an eager audience. These works include I Am a Moon by young playwright Zhu Yi, which unfolds the desires and secrets of urbanites; the ancient Greek tragedy Electra, jointly produced by the national drama company Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre and a Greece-based production team; Xiao Ke, a dance collaboration between Chinese and French artists; New Dragon Inn, presented by the Shanghai Jingju Theatre Company with an equal emphasis on tradition and innovation; and the experimental Cantonese opera Farewell My Concubine (New Adaptation), produced by the Xiqu Centre, West Kowloon Cultural District. Between local and international, tradition and innovation, the infinite power of stage performing arts is unleashed.

The Macao Arts Festival is always dedicated to fostering local artistic and cultural endeavours and productions, which account for half of all the programmes this year, bringing an emotional impact to the audience with a combination of creativity, technology, insight and human concern.

Taking the theme of “humans and cities” and integrating virtual reality (VR) experience into immersive theatre, the local Dirks Theatre Arts Association has produced m@rc0 p0!0 endg@me 2.0 jointly with a Hong Kong-based creative team, a programme that reflects upon the impact of digital civilisation on the human world while transcending the boundary between virtuality and reality. Creative endeavours know no limits. Following F’art for U, the versatile PO Art Studio is bringing to the Macao Arts Festival Lift Left Life Live, a “pseudo travel-themed theatre” play blowing the audience’s mind in the Macao City Fringe Festival and now recreated into an intriguing production that combines travel experience with a reflection on the city.

Stella & Artists, a local troupe dedicated to contemporary dance, will present Club Loneliness with Berlin-based dance company TOTAL BRUTAL, using body language and movements to jointly explore feelings of love and alienation existing across different regions and cultures. Dedicated to producing original plays, the Dream Theater Association has created quasi-documentary theatre The Dress Looks Nice on You based on its creative team’s interviews with psychotic individuals, exploring the unusual perceptual world through text fragments, sounds and videos.

The Zhen Hua Sing Cantonese Opera Association has transformed the painful memories of Typhoon Hato into the Multimedia Full-length Cantonese Opera Bonds of Hato, in an effort to eulogise Macao people’s nobility and love for the city. Patuá theatre, a genre unique to Macao, is an item of national intangible cultural heritage, and the Dóci Papiaçám di Macau Drama Group is the only one of its kind. The drama company, which has been commenting on all big issues of this small city over decades with a hilarious touch like no other, is now embracing its 30^th anniversary. Let us look forward to Carnavaland, the closing programme the company has produced for this year’s Festival.

The Macao Orchestra, one of the local professional music ensembles, will once again bring a feast of wonderful tunes to the audience. Under the baton of genius conductor Lio Kuokman, the orchestra will team up with famed violinist Chen Xi to present the concert Drunken Strings in tribute to the immortal composer Tchaikovsky.

Steady steps on the artistic journey make enduring progress, and the aesthetic sense should be nurtured from an early age. The Macao Arts Festival has been a companion for growing children over the decades and is bringing productions of different styles to the audience this year. Local image artist Bernardo Amorim is presenting the family magical image theatre On This Side of Macao – The Quest for Verónica, unleashing fantastical ideas through local architecture. Transforming a small theatre into a giant cardboard house, the Frozen Charlotte Productions and The A.S.K. are jointly presenting Paperbelle, a minimalist yet highly imaginative play which is sure to blow the young children’s minds. DKS Shanghai will take the little audience into a sensory world with The Ocean, an immersive interactive musical featuring classical music. The Performing Arts Gala will once again be  staged in the community to promote art across the city.

Furthermore, the exceptional outreach programme Selected Screenings of International Stage Performances will feature films of recorded first-class performances by top art troupes from Asia, Europe and the United States, breaking geographical boundaries to give the audience a taste of top international productions.

The passion for life is now uncorked after a three-year pandemic restraint. The Macao Arts Festival invites you all to ponder on the experiences along the way and discover a beautiful scenery unveiled in May this year.

Leong Wai Man
President of the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao Special Administrative Region Government