Small shows with grand ideas

AS PART OF the Edinburgh Fringe 2013, Gandini Juggling’s “Smashed” was selected by the British Council for international programmers and producers to watch as part of “Edinburgh Showcase”. I didn’t make time for it back then, opting for other performances partly because of the word “juggling”. I wondered how a juggling performance could be more than a showcase of special skills. 

Last Tuesday at Hong Kong Cultural Centre’ studio theatre where “Smashed” was presented by the 43rd Hong Kong Arts Festival, I realised how wrong I had been. Nine performers, two them female, of various ages and home countries and most already adorned with many awards, not only delighted the audience with their skills but also proved that a contemporary performance with the art of juggling at its core can be like contemporary dance or nouveau cirque,

The programme book reveals further that the two core members of this 23-year-old British company, juggler Sean Gandini and rhythmic gymnast Kati Yla-Hokkala, have been applying both contemporary dance and mathematical notations to their works for many years. As a result, the movements of the nine performers – Gandini and Yla-Hokkala included – with 80 apples and four crockery sets to a varied soundtrack of songs of different genres were both magically precise and highly graceful. With some British humour, they also toyed with gender issues in a few scenes and racism in another. 

Two afternoons before, Israeli company Puppet Cinema’s “Planet Egg” was another unique theatregoing experience that could be enjoyed by both kids and adults. Many families were seen enjoying the performance with sheer delight in the Amphitheatre of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Object theatre artists Zvi Sahar and Michal Vaknin, who also co-directed this work, made everyday objects like eggs, potatoes, mushrooms and a battery cell come alive as characters and embark on an adventure in extra-terrestrial space. Their performance was accompanied by sound artist Kobe Shmuely who performed many instruments and objects live. Their work was projected onto the screen and that created a unique experience for the audience who had to decide whether to watch the moving images, listen to the soundscape or figure out how the artists ingeniously created them. After the curtain call, a bloopers reel was screened and the audience realised that manipulating these objects and a video camera with merely four hands is not that easy. 

Both works, like many contemporary performing arts that are touring around the globe, remind every artist that they need to think beyond their genre as an increasingly sophisticated and world-wise audience in this digital age demands more and more. 

I’m also sure that many Hong Kong kids would now like to accompany their mothers to supermarkets. As Gandini joked at the curtain call, “Kids, don’t try this at home; do it at school.”

The writer wishes to thank Hong Kong Arts Festival Society’s Alexia Chow for all assistance.

 

A FINAL WEEK

The 43rd Hong Kong Arts Festival runs until Sunday. The Bolshoi Ballet will perform “The Flames of Paris” tomorrow to Thursday and “Jewels” on Saturday and Sunday. 

For more details, visit www.HK.ArtsFestival.org.