Hong Kong Belt-Road: Experimental Art X Multicultural Exchange X City-to-City Conference

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“Shanghai is interested in collaborating with Hong Kong because we can give their research studies a much broader scope and vision,” explained Danny Yung, founding member and co-artistic director of the Hong Kong-based performance company Zuni Icosahedron. “From a pragmatic point of view, we can channel more resources to their projects and increase the diversity. Marketing wise, our participation certainly lends them an international perspective.”

In just a few lines, one of Hong Kong’s leading cultural advocates succinctly summarized the unique competitive edge the city still commands when it comes to positioning the S.A.R. within the Greater China region. Danny Yung was introducing programmes presented by Zuni Icosahedron and scheduled for the months of November and December. The central event he referred to was “Hong Kong-Taipei-Shanghai-Shenzhen City-to-City Cultural Exchange Conference: 20th Anniversary” (Cultural Centre, December 7 to 8), which began two decades ago as an occasion for representatives from four cities in the region with the same cultural heritage to meet and share their experiences and views on cultural phenomena.

The theme for this year is “Cultural Exchange and City Branding”, and the Honourable Mr. Lau Kong-wah (Secretary for Home Affairs) will officiate at the opening ceremony and deliver the opening speech. The two-day event will focus on four areas: (a) international art events and art festival organizations; (b) governments and legislatures; (c) universities and research institutes, and (d) foundations, public media and awarding bodies for arts awards. The conference will compare the views of government bodies with those of private organizations, and will assess the role these four types of institutions play in advancing cultural exchanges and improving the quality of cultural life in these cities.

The first day of the conference will be followed by a performance at the Cultural Center’s Studio Theatre, a short piece that forms a part of the series titled “Belt-Road Performing Arts Master Class and One Table Two Chairs”. The series features twelve masters and young artists of traditional and contemporary art forms from cities mostly located along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st century Maritime Silk Road (Belt & Road regions): they are performers and choreographers from Istanbul, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Mumbai, Nanjing, Tel Aviv, Damascus/Berlin, Yogyakarta, Bogota/Berlin, and Osaka/New York. They will stage their own creative works and conduct master classes in the Cultural Centre’s mirror-clad Studio Theatre, and under the setup of the “One Table Two Chairs” concept adapted from Xiqu (戲曲, or traditional Chinese theatre/opera). Their demonstrations and performances reinforce and contribute to the programmes’s main theme of city-to-city and east-west multicultural exchange.