High 5

Total immersion

Though not listed as an anniversary program, Tai Kwun's Spotlight series of theater, dance and cross-disciplinary shows that ran from April to May was a celebration of the site's potential as a nontraditional performance space.

Since When, for example, was spread out across five venues: the Prison Yard, Laundry Steps, a sitting-out area with a multitude of large potted plants, the JC Cube theater, and three flights of stairs leading to it. Chow Yiu-fai, who co-created the experience with composer Joyce Tang and also wrote the lyrics, stood at the top of the steps in his pajamas, next to a blue taxi, handing out "receipts for the things they have lost" to the audience on their way in. The plants hid a sound installation, playing recordings of sounds likely to disappear in the next 20 years, collected by Chow's students. The young choir of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble blended in with the audience as they performed the prologue standing at different levels around the stairwell.

Chow says that one of the challenges of putting on a multi-location show is ensuring that the audience picks up on cues regarding where to go and when; pulling off a seamless "transition from a relatively quotidian outdoor setup to a more fantastical, opaque and dramatic one inside the theater" being another.

Spotlight also featured Butterfly Island, whose eight performers were scattered across the Prison Yard, doing their own acts, simultaneously, in their designated booths. Next, they wrapped themselves in shiny, black-plastic sheets, and started crawling across the yard. He Qiwo, aka Er Gao, who wrote and directed the piece, says the crawling performers represent the waves of the sea.