HKartsFestival@TaiKwun

HKartsFestival@TaiKwun: This Way to Visit Room

HKartsFestival@TaiKwun

HKartsFestival@TaiKwun: Aqueous

HKartsFestival@TaiKwun: Art on the Move

HKartsFestival@TaiKwun: Open Sesame

HKartsFestival@TaiKwun: Order Now

HKartsFestival@TaiKwun: This Way to Visit Room

HKartsFestival@TaiKwun: Video Letters

Date & Time

12 - 20 Jun, 2021 12-14 June & 19-20 June, 2021

Location

Prison Yard

Price

Free of charge

General

Presented by

 HKartsFestival@TaiKwun is part of the 49th Hong Kong Arts Festival.

 HKartsFestival@TaiKwun is solely sponsored by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.

#ImmersiveTheatre

Play out online character roles in an offline encounter

In view of the prevailing “new normal” of isolation and separation, in which routine get-togethers with our loved ones are conducted online rather than in cafés and restaurants, an apparently defunct bulletin board—one where users play a game of lost-and-found—is now inviting new players to help revive the platform.

This Way to Visit Room is an experimental online theatre that brings role-playing and interactive story-telling directly to your browser. Place your post online and the one you seek could be anyone lurking on the board right now. In addition, the webmaster is setting up a “visit room” in Tai Kwun this June, a place where players log off, meet each other, and perhaps truly reconnect in a rendezvous!

As you both slip into the characters that you create, no one knows what your story will lead to, be it tear-jerking, mind-blowing, or no more than a misunderstanding.

This way through, to the visit room.

HKartsFestival@TaiKwun: This Way to Visit Room

Online call for posts https://taikwun.artsfestival.org/posts  
On-site rendezvous at the “Visit Room”: 
12-14 June & 19-20 June, 2021
Prison Yard
Please stay tuned at https://www.facebook.com/hkaf.at.taikwun for visiting times
 


Production Team

Concept/Direction/Text: Sun Xiaoxing (Beijing) & He Rui (Shenzhen)
Programme Coordination: Sunny Xie Yihai (Nanning)
Project Coordination: Zoe Lai Sim-Fong (Hong Kong)
Online Forum Coordination: Wind Yeung Pui-man (Hong Kong)

A Hong Kong Arts Festival Production

Production Manager: Leung Tat-ming
Technical Manager: Jose Ho Sai-hang
Set Designer: Cheung Lik-hang
Assistant Production Manager: Fiona Tai Tsoi-sin
Stage Manager: Kami Ng Tsz-ling
Commissioned by the 49th Hong Kong Arts Festival and premiered in 2021 at the HKartsFestival@TaiKwun.


How to Play

This Way to Visit Room is a role-play-focused online theatre experience. Please do not disclose any personal identifying information during play.

Online posting and matching

Feel free to read the forum. To take part, please register your “gamertag”, and log in from the front page. After doing so:

  1. Go to https://taikwun.artsfestival.org/posts/new and fill in the form. Your post will be published by the administrator later.
  2. Alternatively, go to https://taikwun.artsfestival.org/posts-apply/249#replyApply and fill in the form as the object of someone else’s search.
  3. Or https://taikwun.artsfestival.org/posts-detail/85#replyApply to comment publicly on other posts.
  4. Send a message to the administrator indicating your favourite response you receive to your posts. You will then meet your “suspect” in a private chatroom, where you must stay in character throughout the exchange to complete chatroom missions together.

Rendezvous at Tai Kwun

Once you have completed the chatroom missions, message the administrator. You will be allotted a time slot on the weekend of either 12-14 or 19-20 June, when you will “meet up” in the visit room as your characters. It will then be up to you if you want to exchange offline identities as well, or to part ways as strangers.


The Artists

Sun Xiaoxing

Born in 1986, Sun Xiaoxing received his master’s degree from the Department of Dramatic Literature at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing and is currently an associate professor in the Department of Drama and Film at Tianjin Conservatory of Music. A pioneer of experimental theatre in China, Sun brings elements of pop culture, site-specificity and theatre histrionics together in a series of works under the concept of “cyber theatre”. His works have taken place simultaneously online and offline, on platforms such as games or livestreaming apps and also in internet cafés or before live audiences. Sun has been invited to present his works at numerous international festivals, including Festival/Tokyo, Kyoto Experiment, OzAsia Festival in Adelaide, New Art Fest in Lisbon, Low Fat Art Fes in Bangkok, the Shanghai Biennale, Wuzhen Theatre Festival, Beijing Fringe Festival, Shenzhen New Media Art Festival, and more.

His major Sun’s key works includes ————Here Is the Dividing Line————; Speed Show: Drift Internet Café; Love’s Labour’s Lost, Here Is the Message You Asked For... Don't Tell Anyone Else ;-); The Cherry Orchard; Rhinoceros; Mehotel and more. Rhinoceros was shortlisted for the 15th Arte Laguna Prize and The Cherry Orchard received nomination at the One Drama Awards 2019 in Shanghai.

Sun is also involved in theatre studies, as editor-in-chief for Re-Theatre: The Independent Theatre Cities Map, as well as writing for publications such as Drama, Theatre Arts, Stage and Screen Reviews, LEAP, Art World and Art and Design. He has been invited to attend and speak at academic conferences by the Japan Foundation, Culture City of East Asia, the Goethe-Institut, Performing Arts Network of Korea and China and Macao Chinese Theatre Institute.

Homepage: www.sunxiaoxing.com

He Rui

He Rui received a bachelor’s degree in Drama from Tianjin Conservatory of Music and a master’s degree in Directing from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. He is currently teaching performance at Changzhou University.

His selected works as director include Floating, a graduation project in 2020 (presented by the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in collaboration with the Chung Ying Theatre Company, which he also wrote), “Leave Blank” (part of Space in Hong Kong, at Dragonix Multi-Arts Festival, 2018), Jing Ke Assassin, HI, and The Walking Dead. He has acted in productions of Low Pixels of the Fourteenth Path of Eight Wei Road, Out of Reach, Fragments, Mourning Theatre, and more.

Recently, He has regularly been invited by Sun Xiaoxing to be his assistant director. Their collaborative works have been invited to Kyoto International Stage Art Festival, Adelaide Australia and Asia Art Festival, and ReActor ② at Power Station of Art.

Sunny Xie Yihai

Xie Yihai graduated from the School of Law of Guangxi University for Nationalities. He is the founder and production director of Good Dance Centre in Nanning and has produced nearly all its productions since 2001. He has led its productions at major dance festivals in Beijing, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Russia, and more. In 2013-2014, he co-produced a cross-cultural residency project for the Culture City of East Asia 2014 Yokohama, which was subsequently presented at Tokyo Performing Arts Meeting (TPAM).

Since 2017, Xie has been curating content under the moniker “Jue-dui-bu-hao-ye” on WeChat, Weibo and Bilibili, attracting wider attention to his theatre productions. Within a few years, his WeChat has garnered a cult following within the industry, with his Weibo boasting over a million monthly readers.

Zoe Lai Sim-fong

Lai Sim-fong graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Practice at University of Exeter, mentored by Phillip Zarrilli in psycho-physical approach. She also has a bachelor’s degree in modern languages and cultural studies from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. As an independent dramaturg in theatre and contemporary dance, she has presented work in Liverpool, Manchester, and Poland. Her recent works include RedAttempts on Her Life, and Ettiquette with Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, Not the Maids and Testimony by Rooftop Productions, and Remote Hong Kong and 100% Hong Kong by Rimini Protokoll. Works in dance include Nook by Wong Pek Kei, Trinity by Terry Tsang, and Stay/Away by Hook Dance Theatre x Artistree. Lai’s works in visual arts includes Influenzer by Enoch Cheng. She worked as dramaturg at the First Documentary Theatre Festival by Pants Theatre Production and Hong Kong International Black Box Festival at West Kowloon Cultural District in collaboration with Hong Kong Repertory Theatre. In recent years, Lai has actively promoted multimedia presentation events, including SHIFTING by Knowledge Transfer at Tai Kwun. Since 2016, Lai has been working closely with LittleUrbanMountain Design as a creative partner; she is keen to bring theatrical and performative elements to architecture. Projects include: Slow Sculpture at PMQ deTour 2018, Yes Kids Can! Rolling School Project, and Arts Makes Village. Her curated public education project for Tai Kwun: Edible Performance won the Good Design Award Japan 2020.


The above content is provided by Hong Kong Arts Festival