A multisensory interactive dance adventure with live performers and avatars in physical and virtual dimensions

8-11.9.2022

Dance artist Zelia ZZ Tan invites the audience to become co-creators in a multisensory, interactive dance adventure. Blending live performance, improvisation, motion-capture, projections and AR, the experience explores motion through a variety of physical and virtual dimensions.

As dance artists move about the venue, audience-participants complete a series of simple tasks. Gradually the boundaries between spectator, performer and real and animated movement become blurred, with fragmented gestures transformed into a cohesive, co-created whole.

Performances, installations, and digital and virtual experiences highlighting new dimensions of dance in Phygital D

At September and October 2022, Freespace presents a programme of performances and multimedia installations that blend dance, live physical performance, film, motion capture and virtual reality experiences. Showcasing multimedia movement artists from Hong Kong and Asia, the programme features new creations that transport the audience through a variety of physical and virtual dance worlds.

Avant-garde Japanese artist Hiroaki Umeda presents the full-length performance indivisible substance – the final iteration of the work-in-progress virtual experience presented by Freespace in 2020 and 2021, along with three related installation works. City Contemporary Dance Company’s Zelia ZZ Tan invites the audience to be part of an immersive motion-captured dance experience with real and virtual performers. Hong Kong film director Tsang Tsui-shan captures the intimate creative world of dance duo Ix Wong Thien-pau (Malaysia) and Aaron Khek Ah-hock (Singapore) through a VR installation experience. Chinese artist Lu Yang, whose high-energy, anime-inspired work has attracted much attention in the contemporary new media art world, premieres a real-time collaboration between dancers and virtual avatars in Hong Kong and Sydney. And Hong Kong artist Chan Wai-lok redefines dance and performance through an interactive digital journey.

Read more information about Phygital D here.

The Programme is part of “Creative Tomorrow” exclusively sponsored by The Hong Kong Jockey Club.

At their best, the performing arts can be thought-provoking, causing audiences to step out of the theatre with greater self-knowledge and new understandings and inspirations. The creative approaches behind this season’s xiqu, dance, music and theatre productions at West Kowloon embrace cutting-edge arts tech to renew the artistic practices we all know and love. The stage is set – so make the trip to discover the wonders that await, one performance at a time. Watch our season video!

Freespace Ensemble brings together musicians from different musical backgrounds for exciting cross-genre collaborations. In this video, ensemble member and jazz pianist Hong Kong-born Joyce Cheung talks about her recent collaborations with local singer-songwriters Kiri T and Moon Tang, and the inspiring possibilities that such experiences open up.

French choreographer extraordinaire Christian Rizzo joins West Kowloon Karen Cheung* to host a public talk in which he will delve into his career highlights and challenges, and his experience of collaborating with artists from different backgrounds over the years. 

*Head of Dance, Performing Arts, West Kowloon 


From 31 May to 5 June 2022, Freespace, Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels and French May Arts Festival co-present the multi-element free programme “Carte Blanche to Christian Rizzo” in which Christian Rizzo takes full creative control while working remotely from France. In this supplementary online talk, Rizzo also shares his thoughts about the remote collaborations. 

The one-hour online talk is conducted in English, with English and Chinese subtitles.

Click here to find out more about this week-long contemporary dance extravaganza.

In September 2021, art TALKS tech transformed The Room at Freespace into a participatory laboratory – offering two sets of young local artists space and time to revisit past work and conduct creative experiments with technology and art.

This video offers a glimpse into the experimental journey. Sharing insight on their creative process, artists Kenny Wong, Jacklam Ho and the TEA Student Ensemble – Allison Fong, Ian Tang and Yoyo Yau – talk about the experience, and the perspective they gained through collaboration and audience exchange.

art TALKS tech is a part of the four-year collaborative platform TechBox established between Freespace and the School of Theatre and Entertainment Arts at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. The platform brings together media artists, theatre designers, faculty members and students to explore new frontiers of technology and performance, and devise experimental creations in a technological context.

Documentation: TR Concept and Visual Atelier
Video editing: Ray@TR Concept and Visual Atelier

In October 2021, after the Experimental Lab session at Freespace Jazz fest, we talked with the artists about their experience. Hear their thoughts and see highlights from the session in this new video sharing.

Experimental Lab brings together musicians from a mix of backgrounds for a 45-minute session of pure improvisation on self-selected instruments.

The impromptu encounter of artists, instruments and sounds takes place with no prior rehearsal or discussion, opening up unique and surprising new forms of communication.

The 2021 session included six musicians with backgrounds in classical, rock, electronic and jazz who performed on bass guitar, double bass, cello, viola, saxophone and self-made electronic instruments (DIY electronics).

Participating musicians:
Guyshawn Wong
Jeff Lehmberg
Jonathan Yang
William Lane
Scott Murphy
Jasper Fung

In October 2021 – after ten years of discussion and six years of production and rehearsals – 100% Hong Kong brought together 100 Hong Kong people in a living, breathing portrait of our city.

Part of Rimini Protokoll’s worldwide 100% City series, 100% Hong Kong was presented collaboratively by Rimini Protokoll in Berlin and Freespace and On&On Theatre Workshop in Hong Kong.

This heartfelt behind-the-scenes video sheds light on how the show came together and how the soul-baring process touched everyone involved, and offers insight into some of the individuals who make up our culturally diverse hometown.

Read more about 100% Hong Kong here.

Right now, the theatre industry faces an uncertain future.

Since the outbreak of the global pandemic at the beginning of 2020, closures, cancellations, travel bans and lockdowns have had a major impact on theatres, actors and industry workers around the world.

This June, Edward Lam Dance Theatre and Freespace invited 30 Hong Kong-based actors to place themselves inside an empty theatre and reflect on their relationship with the audience, and the meaning of theatre, both as a space and as an art form, in the absence of audience and performers.

There were no rehearsals. Standing alone in Freespace’s black box theatre, facing an empty auditorium, each artist produced intuitive, heartfelt, short solo videos responding to the space, and exploring the nature of theatre when live performance is impossible.

TechBox 2021

In this short video, members of the TEA Student Ensemble (Allison Fong, Ian Tang, Yoyo Yau and Lam Yiu Chun) and arts TALKS tech facilitator Fiona Lee share thoughts on the collaborative production and staging process used in the creation of the experimental sound and media performance Oo.ll.oO Against Alienation in Our New Normal, and reflect on how the process influenced thoughts on future work. 

The sharing and performance was part of the 2021 arts TALKS tech programme, a participatory laboratory where young local artists conduct creative experiments with technology and art. The programme was presented as part of the TechBox platform for artwork-based inquiry and dialogue – a collaboration between Freespace and the School of Theatre and Entertainment Arts (TEA)  at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts – that brings together media artists, theatre designers, faculty members and students to explore new frontiers of technology and performance. 

The presentation with the TEA Student Ensemble was facilitated by Fiona Lee and curated by Yuen Cheuk-wa and Bobo Lee. 

Read more about arts TALKS tech here.