For 32 days starting from February 6, the spotlights shine bright on the region’s first major international performing arts festival of the year. Some of the highly acclaimed artists whose works will highlight Hong Kong Arts Festival 2009 (HKAF) include Bernard Haitink and Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Ingo Metzmacher and Deustches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; Lisa Ono; Chuck Corea and John McLaughlin; Sir Peter Hall; the Wooster Group; Akram Khan and Juliette Binoche. 

In the phone interview with The Nation, Tisa Ho, the festival’s executive director, says that two of the major ideas that are underpinning this year’s programming scheme are Baroque and journey.

 "Alcina"

“This year is a big anniversary of Handel and Haydn, and there’s a whole bunch of Baroque music manifested in different ways so you won’t get bored. For instance, we have [Latvian National Opera’s production of] ‘Alcina’ which is a Baroque opera; the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra [performing compositions by Handel, Rameau, and Haydn, conducted by Ton Koopman]."

"A dance company [Hong Kong Ballet] doing an 'All-Bach' programme; and Northern Sinfonia and Chorus is performing Haydn’s biggest mass ‘Harmoniemesse’.”

“Another major idea is that of journey, or going to strange places. This happens in two ways. One is the theme within some works, so ‘Alcina’ is that as well. Some of the journeys are a little more hypothetical, like in [Latvian National Opera’s production of] Shostakovich’s ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’ which is actually a journey into the heart and soul of a community."

              "The Emperor Jones"

"[The Wooster Group’s] ‘The Emperor Jones’ is one man’s journey, physically and literally, through an enchanted forest but metaphorically a journey on which he meets his own past.”

"England"

“On another level, in the programming itself, the festival goes to different spaces. We’re going to an art gallery for a theatre performance [Tim Crouch’s “England”] and we’re going to venues in New Territories we haven’t used before. Apart from the fact that there are a limited number of great venues in Hong Kong, I think it’d be interesting at this time for the festival to look at how performers and audiences can interact and how, as organizers, we can influence that interaction. This is partly within the framework of Hong Kong’s major plan for West Kowloon culture district. We’re building some great venues and we have the potential of building something significant, and the more we as the community of artists, audiences, and administrators think about what it means, I think, the better the results will be.” 

Local Hong Kong and Chinese artists will also share the limelights with international artists and two of the most highly anticipated are the National Ballet of China’s “The Peony Pavilion”, and four different programmes by the all-women Shanghai Yueju Opera Theatre.