34th Macao Arts Festival

Seasons follow an orderly progression, and everything has its time. Early summer, with its blossoming flowers, is a perfect season to encounter art. This year, the 34th Macao Arts Festival, themed ‘Wonderful Encounters’, presents a series of fantastic, magical, and innovative programs, inviting audiences to discover and embrace art together. As the curtains rise, countless figures shine under the spotlight with extraordinary brilliance. Whether it’s a beautiful encounter, a passionate date, or a rare reunion, it will be a splendid and dazzling encounter. The opening grand event, ‘Jungle Fables (Reimagined)’, reinterprets a fantasy classic, produced by the legendary dancer Egon Han and his top team, adapting the timeless classic by Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling into a thought-provoking dance theater work that examines the existential crisis of humanity through the eyes of a child. The circus masterpiece ‘The Ugly Duckling Falls into Swan Lake’ draws from Tchaikovsky’s ballet ‘Swan Lake’ and Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale ‘The Ugly Duckling’. The Boundless Acrobatics Troupe from Australia will return to Macao, bringing joy and whimsical theatrical experiences to audiences with their superb skills. ‘Fantasy’ and ‘dreams’ are inseparable. From fairy tales to ballets, ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ has always exuded a charming allure. Marco Morau, a winner of the Spanish National Dance Award, collaborates with the Lyon Opera Ballet to present the contemporary ballet ‘The Sleeping Beauty’, which may add a touch of strange magic. Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Macbeth’ is an immortal classic with many heart-shaking interpretations. The festival will present a version never seen on the Macao stage before – ‘Macbeth’ in Sardinian × Physical Theater. This work boldly uses an all-male cast to explore the primal power of the classic tragedy in a rugged and desolate atmosphere. Another work, ‘Blood Ties’ presented by the Portuguese National Art Troupe, is a portrayal of family relationships, bringing the friction and struggle between brothers to the stage for an in-depth analysis of human emotions. Art often stems from life and is closely related to reality. For thousands of years, writers, painters, and countless artists have used art to reveal true human nature. ‘The Psychological Atlas of Urban Women’, directed by Marie Brassard, is based on the short life of female writer Nelly Arcan. This work transforms Nelly Arcan’s powerful words into songs of life, telling the story of human vulnerability. Legends are passed down through the extraordinary. What kind of chemical reaction will occur when the ‘one table and two chairs’ of traditional Chinese opera meet Ionesco’s absurd play ‘The Chairs’? The Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe presents the experimental Kunqu opera ‘The Chairs’, exploring the eternal themes of love, loneliness, and the meaning of life with traditional opera skills, spanning ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign. The local new Cantonese opera ‘Locust Shade Record’ is also brave in innovation. The famous Cantonese opera performer Zhu Zhenhua will join a group of local elites to showcase their skills on the stage, exploring the inheritance and innovation of traditional skills.
Childhood is the crucial period for nurturing creativity and imagination. The Polish Bazza Theatre Troupe has specially prepared an infant theatre, ‘A Book for Babies’, to open a magical world for young artists with a wordless book. Additionally, Veronica, born in Macau and beloved by both adults and children, returns! Local artist Bernardo Amorim, renowned for his multimedia and plastic arts, once again casts his enchanting spell with the family-friendly program ‘Accompanying You, Being with You’, inviting the audience to explore the inner world of the precocious Veronica. Among the ‘Wonders and Encounters’, there are multiple programs created with local history and culture as their themes. Dancer Chen Ming, inspired by self-combing women, combines traditional opera elements to create the environmental dance theatre ‘She Says’; the Macau-born Portuguese Language Drama Troupe continues to promote the ‘Macanese Portuguese Language Drama’, a national intangible cultural heritage rooted in Macau; the Eccentric Old Tree Theatre Troupe performs ‘Dreaming Back to Yilong’ at the former Yilong Firecracker Factory, blending imagination with the rise and fall of Macau’s firecracker industry. The Macau Arts Festival has long been committed to promoting the professionalization of local art troupes and providing a platform for local talents to showcase their skills. The Grand Theatre’s ‘Medical Record Number: XXXX’ is adapted from the famous work ‘Equus’ by British playwright Peter Shaffer, combining live performance with real-time imaging technology to expand the dimensions of viewing and contemplation. The Acting Space’s ‘Science/Frankenstein’, adapted from the classic science fiction novel ‘Frankenstein’, will be accompanied by audio description and visual translation services to allow people of different abilities to share the joy of watching theatre. In this grand cultural event, artists and audiences can also communicate and integrate through the wonderful melodies. The Macau Chinese Orchestra collaborates with Hong Kong’s ‘Super Diva’, Yip Lai-han, to perform classic hits for music lovers; the Portuguese rock band Capitão Fausto (Captain Fausto) will perform alongside Chinese singer Huang Da Wei, creating a vibrant moment of Sino-Portuguese cultural exchange. Furthermore, ‘Focus: Adaptation of 18-19th Century Sino-Western Visual Arts’ carefully selects over 300 pieces of exhibits to re-enact the historical exchanges between Chinese and foreign artists; the heavyweight extension event ‘International Stage Image Selection’ continues to bring outstanding works from top art troupes around the world, expanding the realm of artistic imagination. Between the rise and fall of the curtain, the brilliant light shines straight into the soul, reflecting a journey of splendor and brilliance. With beautiful hopes, we sincerely invite everyone to embark on this fantastic and colorful artistic journey! Open from May 3rd to June 7th.

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