https://www.scmp.com/rss/321713/feed Album reviews, art house films and the latest exhibitions en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Founded and led by veteran Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To Kei-fung, the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival, now in its 18th year, has always aimed to nurture local talent. This year, however, has been a little tougher without its usual sources of funding. And for a local festival that punches above its weight, that stings. Among the winners of the best new director at the Hong Kong Film Awards between 2017 to 2024, six had previously taken part in Fresh Wave: Nick Cheuk Yik-him (Time... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3278725/whats-future-filmmaking-hong-kong-years-fresh-wave-film-festival-winners-telling-personal-stories?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3278725/whats-future-filmmaking-hong-kong-years-fresh-wave-film-festival-winners-telling-personal-stories?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 Sep 2024 03:15:13 +0000 Andrew Sun Andrew Sun People say youth is wasted on the young, but actor Brenda Chan Kwai-Fun feels more disappointed when time is wasted by the aged. “I once asked an elderly person, ‘What do you do daily?’ ‘I go to the social centre to kill time,’ she replied. This shocked me,” says Chan. “We do not have much time as it is, why would you waste more? Seniors don’t deserve to just wait to die. Life is so valuable.” This is one reason Chan is launching the Hong Kong Creative Aging Arts Festival (HKCAAF), a two-week... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3278720/seniors-dont-deserve-just-wait-die-actor-brenda-chan-creating-festival-elder-artists?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3278720/seniors-dont-deserve-just-wait-die-actor-brenda-chan-creating-festival-elder-artists?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 17 Sep 2024 02:12:04 +0000 Hong Kong Ballet’s most recent production of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, in 2021, provided a new spin on the famous ballet, with its fantastical story that takes place in a child’s imagination, infusing it with local cultural elements, from lion dancers to jockeys to mahjong. Fashion designer Mountain Yam, founder of the label 112 mountainyam, explains how it changed his life. I wasn’t a big fan of ballet but I’ve become one. Last year, we had a collaboration with Hong Kong Ballet – we... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3277801/tchaikovskys-nutcracker-still-has-power-change-lives-what-fashion-designer-learned-hong-kong-ballets?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3277801/tchaikovskys-nutcracker-still-has-power-change-lives-what-fashion-designer-learned-hong-kong-ballets?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 11 Sep 2024 03:15:15 +0000 Kate Whitehead Kate Whitehead I was born in Hawaii in 1968 in the early morning hours after Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States. My mother contemplated naming me Richard, but thankfully she was also a Beatles fan and ended up naming me Paul. I have one sibling, a brother who is 14 months older than me. It was just the two of us in a small Japanese family. He was the eldest son, which meant I was out of luck – he got all the love, attention and adoration because in Japanese culture the firstborn son is... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276940/comedian-paul-ogata-his-own-words-why-robin-williams-and-andy-bumatai-were-early-role-models-and-i?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276940/comedian-paul-ogata-his-own-words-why-robin-williams-and-andy-bumatai-were-early-role-models-and-i?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 05 Sep 2024 22:15:08 +0000 Phil Wang grew up to be a miracle worker. “Stand-up is like alchemy”, he muses. “Turning nothing into something. There’s something mystifying about that. To stand on stage on your own and turn that nothing into a room of laughing people – I found that fascinating, so I thought I’d give it a go.” Wang, 34, familiar from live performances and innumerable television and radio shows, is poised to release his second Netflix special, Wang in There, Baby! But now, during a video call from his London... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276817/stand-comic-phil-wang-channels-his-british-malaysian-heritage-netflix-gold-new-special-wang-there?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276817/stand-comic-phil-wang-channels-his-british-malaysian-heritage-netflix-gold-new-special-wang-there?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Sep 2024 08:45:08 +0000 The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra is set to commence its 51st season with a spectacular opening concert featuring the Hong Kong debut of the acclaimed Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich and the return of Finnish conductor Tarmo Peltokoski. The event promises to be a highlight of the classical music calendar, showcasing the ethereal beauty of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto and the profound depth of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 – but beyond that, it’s a vision of the future of the world of classical... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276811/hk-phils-2024-25-season-begins-24-year-old-finnish-conductor-and-future-music-director-tarmo?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276811/hk-phils-2024-25-season-begins-24-year-old-finnish-conductor-and-future-music-director-tarmo?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Sep 2024 04:45:09 +0000 The Tao Te Ching (circa 4th century BC and later), traditionally attributed to legendary sage Lao Tzu, is the foundational text of Taoism, as well as one of the world’s most important works of philosophy. Sarah Greene, Belgium-born founder and director of Sheung Wan independent art space Blue Lotus Gallery, explains how it changed her life. It is a text written over 2,000 years ago that had a transformative power over me. I was introduced to it while studying classical Chinese at the University... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276037/how-tao-te-ching-taught-me-focus-small-simple-attainable-things?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276037/how-tao-te-ching-taught-me-focus-small-simple-attainable-things?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Aug 2024 03:15:15 +0000 The Klimt Collection at the Belvedere Museum Vienna is the largest group of works by Gustav Klimt, one of the leading artistic figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His works often depicted the female body, exploring the boundary of figuration and abstraction in a riot of colour, texture, eroticism and emotion. The first time I found out about Klimt was when I was doing art A-level in Cambridge. I was born in Hong Kong and educated in a local school, then moved to the UK for GCSEs... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3275122/what-im-doing-now-very-related-klimt-how-hong-kong-home-furnisher-channelling-austrian-painters?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3275122/what-im-doing-now-very-related-klimt-how-hong-kong-home-furnisher-channelling-austrian-painters?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 22 Aug 2024 03:15:13 +0000 With journalist Phoebe Judge as host and co-producer, This is Love could count on a built-in following from the hit true-crime show Criminal, which she also hosts and co-produces, but there is no resting on laurels here. Judge’s soothing voice, a calm foil to the disturbing events of Criminal, is perfectly at home investigating mysterious stories of an altogether more positive kind. The “love stories”, such as they are, come from refreshingly different directions, rarely about romantic love but... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3274604/love-phoebe-judges-inspirational-podcast-celebrates-romance-all-its-myriad-mystical-forms?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3274604/love-phoebe-judges-inspirational-podcast-celebrates-romance-all-its-myriad-mystical-forms?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 18 Aug 2024 23:15:13 +0000 Suji Owen Suji Owen The hottest months of summer in a big city can feel debilitating. Too hot to run, walk or play outside except at the shoulders of the day and far worse, for me at least, is being imprisoned in freezing cubes of air conditioning thereafter. When we lock ourselves inside, scuttling as quickly as possible from office to shops and back home again, the loss of nature can feel immense. But as every happiness pod will tell you, dealing with uncomfortable environments is as much about changing your... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3274592/5-nature-podcasts-tune-summer-meditative-story-bbcs-forest-404?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3274592/5-nature-podcasts-tune-summer-meditative-story-bbcs-forest-404?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Aug 2024 09:45:11 +0000 When Jean-René Olivier Yat Tin Cong Shoe answers the door to his studio, he is wearing a shirt with an Albert Camus quote from The Plague (1947), and his head is heavy from the remnants of a nightmare. The airy space in the heart of Ngau Tau Kok is an exercise in maximalism – everywhere, musical instruments, stacks of books and visual references such as a picture of Maggie Cheung Man-yuk in Irma Vep (1996), and a small image of soft trees under the afternoon sun. The latter is a still from... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3274399/musician-olivier-congs-latest-album-tropical-church-ode-hong-kong-experimental-sounds?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3274399/musician-olivier-congs-latest-album-tropical-church-ode-hong-kong-experimental-sounds?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 14 Aug 2024 06:33:34 +0000 Where and how did Cantopop begin? Not – as many would think – with Anita Mui Yim-fong, Jacky Cheung Hok-yau and Aaron Kwok Fu-shing, and all the other familiar Hong Kong Chinese superstars who burst onto the international entertainment scene in the early 1980s with a quintessentially Hong Kong music genre that combined catchy tunes with mixed-language, code-switching vocabularies and performance styles. The initial stirrings of this most characteristic local musical phenomenon happened much... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3273492/how-cantopop-really-began-ren-da-silvas-diamond-records-helped-birth-hong-kongs-most-loved-music?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3273492/how-cantopop-really-began-ren-da-silvas-diamond-records-helped-birth-hong-kongs-most-loved-music?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 13 Aug 2024 06:45:10 +0000 Performance and installation artist Chiharu Shiota is best known for her monumental works consisting of huge, dense webs of brightly coloured thread that have been suspended from ceilings, often enveloping household items and other objects below them. A survey of her work since the 1990s, The Soul Trembles (2019), at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum, represented her most comprehensive exhibition. Virginia Lung Wai-ki, co-founder of Hong Kong interior design studio One Plus Partnership, explains how it... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3274171/how-japanese-installation-artists-monumental-work-changed-hong-kong-interior-designers-life?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3274171/how-japanese-installation-artists-monumental-work-changed-hong-kong-interior-designers-life?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Aug 2024 09:15:13 +0000 Ching Shih was notoriously difficult to impress. History’s most powerful and swag-laden pirate, Canton native, scourge of the Chinese, British and Portuguese fleets, with roughly 1,800 ships and 80,000 crew at her command, she was also an implacable disciplinarian and enforcer of women’s rights who executed all manner of rule breakers. But she would no doubt approve of Maja Bodenstein. The film and television writer has returned Ching to the South China Sea of the Qing dynasty – reincarnating... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3273574/pirate-queen-how-filmmaker-maja-bodenstein-reclaimed-her-chinese-roots-emmy-nominated-video-game?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3273574/pirate-queen-how-filmmaker-maja-bodenstein-reclaimed-her-chinese-roots-emmy-nominated-video-game?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Aug 2024 03:15:08 +0000 Host Greg Jenner, historical consultant to the brilliant children’s television series Horrible Histories, presides over arguably the most entertaining and digestible of all history podcasts. And I say this as someone who loves history podcasts. Now in its eighth season, You’re Dead to Me has been a huge hit for the BBC, selling out several live shows and winning podcast, radio and comedy awards every year since its launch, in 2019. Jenner enlists a comedian and a top historian to explore... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3272970/podcast-week-youre-dead-me-hosted-horrible-histories-greg-jenner?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3272970/podcast-week-youre-dead-me-hosted-horrible-histories-greg-jenner?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Aug 2024 22:45:11 +0000 Comedy infused with incisive social commentary has a long history in Hong Kong: Stephen Chow Sing-chi’s mo lei tau style of slapstick cinema has been duly inscribed in the collective memory of the city since the 1980s, while contemporaries include the likes of Tang Shu-wing’s No Man’s Land theatre group, as well as Jim Chim Sui-man and Olivia Yan Wing-pui. Today, the tradition is kept alive on the stage by Windmill Grass Theatre’s latest production, Black Comedy Di-Dar, which is back for a new... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3272872/what-mo-lei-tau-comedy-theatre-group-keeping-hong-kongs-acute-brand-slapstick-humour-alive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3272872/what-mo-lei-tau-comedy-theatre-group-keeping-hong-kongs-acute-brand-slapstick-humour-alive?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Aug 2024 03:45:10 +0000 Last June, Ambrose Akinmusire announced his musical rebirth to the world with Beauty is Enough, a studio album promoted with a cryptic Joan Didion quote: “Maybe I was holding all the aces, but what was the game?” Whatever it was, the American trumpeter has certainly made much of the hand he’s been dealt over his two-decade-plus music career, all the while refusing to hew too close to convention. “You know, I don’t play the game,” says Akinmusire, ahead of his recent Hong Kong debut at the Xiqu... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3272768/jazz-star-ambrose-akinmusire-wayne-shorter-quitting-blue-note-records-and-finding-beauty-troubled?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3272768/jazz-star-ambrose-akinmusire-wayne-shorter-quitting-blue-note-records-and-finding-beauty-troubled?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Aug 2024 21:45:10 +0000 Perhaps the world’s most famous unfinished building, the Sagrada Família is due to be completed in 2026. Barcelona’s undisputed major landmark, construction of which began in 1882, it is the masterwork of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. Horace Pan Hung-bing, founder of Hong Kong interior design studio Panorama Design Group and chairman of the Hong Kong Interior Design Association, explains how it changed his life. The first time I saw it was when I was at university. I was very happy to be able... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3272737/barcelonas-sagrada-familia-worlds-most-famous-unfinished-building-reason?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3272737/barcelonas-sagrada-familia-worlds-most-famous-unfinished-building-reason?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:15:12 +0000 At the recent Paris Fashion Week, haute couture from the planet’s most renowned fashion houses was paraded and admired. Not for the first time, collections and designs nodded to past trends, but this year, Vivienne Westwood’s always eclectic label (designed by Andreas Kronthaler) took direct inspiration from the courts of pre-revolutionary France. Models sashayed as always, but the keen-eyed would have spotted on one outfit an 18th century accoutrement – the “stomacher”, a triangular panel made... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/fashion/article/3272727/napoleon-vivienne-westwood-how-18th-century-court-fashion-still-inspires-paris-fashion-week?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/fashion/article/3272727/napoleon-vivienne-westwood-how-18th-century-court-fashion-still-inspires-paris-fashion-week?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Aug 2024 03:45:08 +0000 If you are still wondering what a gap year actually is, you can do worse than take the conversational route with Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant of Stuff You Should Know. Launched in 2008, this venerable OG of trivia pods recently released its 2,000th episode, one of which outlines everything you ought to know about the traditional gap-year experience between high school and university. They raise the point that it is predominantly a British practice, the value of which hangs on a number of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3272314/podcast-find-week-operation-mincemeat-stuff-you-should-know-josh-clark-and-chuck-bryant?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3272314/podcast-find-week-operation-mincemeat-stuff-you-should-know-josh-clark-and-chuck-bryant?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 29 Jul 2024 10:30:08 +0000 Hot on the heels of news that Hongkong Land and luxury brands are set to pour US$1 billion over three years into renovating Central’s Landmark properties, the developer’s “Tomorrow’s Central” project is already yielding returns for mall-goers, with Sotheby’s two-storey Maison at Landmark Chater set to open this weekend, on July 27. The 24,000 sq ft space is set to burnish Hong Kong’s credentials as a global centre for the arts and comes after the city’s auction houses reported encouraging spring... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3271875/sothebys-maison-opens-landmark-chater-host-exhibitions-performances-and-auctions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3271875/sothebys-maison-opens-landmark-chater-host-exhibitions-performances-and-auctions?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 25 Jul 2024 09:36:40 +0000 London museum and library the Wellcome Collection, explores the intersection of science, medicine and art, hosting regular temporary exhibitions. “Milk” (2023) examined the history, politics and cultural role of the life-giving liquid, while “The Cult of Beauty” (2023-24) explored changing notions of pulchritude and the lengths people go to in their pursuit of it. Hong Kong contemporary artist Ling Pui-sze, whose work features abstract depictions of organic forms, explains how recent insights... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3271781/why-hong-kong-artist-ling-pui-sze-stans-wellcome-collection-london-and-its-ever-so-eclectic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3271781/why-hong-kong-artist-ling-pui-sze-stans-wellcome-collection-london-and-its-ever-so-eclectic?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 25 Jul 2024 09:00:09 +0000 Podcasters have been trying to replicate the secret sauce of Heavyweight since it became one of the most beloved shows of all time, but the ingredients are nuanced and many. Released by Gimlet Media in 2016, all eight seasons are required listening for anyone wanting to understand what podcasts are capable of. Host Jonathan Goldstein tries to help everyday people resolve a moment from their past, the “heavy weight” that they still carry many years later. Some come from deep hurt, others from an... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3270962/podcast-find-week-heavyweight-jonathan-goldstein?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3270962/podcast-find-week-heavyweight-jonathan-goldstein?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Jul 2024 21:00:11 +0000 Podcasts are rife with sliding-doors moments, seemingly inconsequential instants that signal a fork in the road and a future altered. The term was popularised by the 1998 romcom Sliding Doors, where two Gwyneth Paltrows follow different destinies after one boards a train and the other, having bumped into a child, fails to board before the doors slide shut. The storytelling medium suits close examinations of the paths taken – and not taken – in all podcast genres, but listening to tales of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3270951/5-podcasts-take-deep-dive-lives-unlived-hosts-such-john-green-and-chion-wolf?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3270951/5-podcasts-take-deep-dive-lives-unlived-hosts-such-john-green-and-chion-wolf?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Jul 2024 09:00:16 +0000 Faced with following up 2019’s inaugural Freespace Jazz Fest, but finding engaging programming difficult with international travel amid pandemic uncertainty, in-house curator Kung Chi-shing conceived a series of virtual encounters for 2020: pairing local musicians with contemporaries elsewhere on the globe. It quickly became clear to Kung that even a minuscule digital delay would scupper any syncopation, so sprawling, free-form improvisations became the norm. The sessions begat what will become... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3271046/cantopop-so-unhealthy-inside-hong-kongs-new-experimental-music-happening-freespace-noise-fest?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3271046/cantopop-so-unhealthy-inside-hong-kongs-new-experimental-music-happening-freespace-noise-fest?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Jul 2024 04:45:14 +0000 The global phenomenon of Mamma Mia! is set to dazzle Hong Kong audiences once again, as the play returns to the city after a five-year hiatus. The original English production will take centre stage at the Lyric Theatre of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, for a total of 24 shows from July 26 to August 15. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Mamma Mia!, a testament to its enduring popularity. Created by British producer Judy Craymer, the musical weaves together some of the best-loved... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3270958/our-radar-mamma-mia-returns-hong-kong-stage?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3270958/our-radar-mamma-mia-returns-hong-kong-stage?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 18 Jul 2024 21:00:10 +0000 The lost-memory itch that cannot be scratched – or googled – is a universal experience. My longest lasting was about 10 years ago and went on for more than a year, when I couldn’t remember the name of one of my favourite childhood books so that I could pass it on to my own children. I could recall the picture on the front, chunks of dialogue and how much I loved the way that book made me feel but, frustratingly, none of it was enough to track it down, until after some painstaking effort, I... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3269861/podcast-find-week-reply-alls-case-missing-hit?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3269861/podcast-find-week-reply-alls-case-missing-hit?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Jul 2024 23:45:07 +0000 On the basis that you are what you consume, I poked around the podcast charts to see what Hong Kong’s audio diet looks like these days. Using Chartable, a website that publishes daily Apple and Spotify charts (as well as its own global rankings) to sift through our collective listening habits, I wish I could say I was surprised by the results. The top spot flits between Cantonese true crime show Waterblowing Mysteries and JPMorgan’s tech IPO explainer Acquired. Pleasingly, 34 of the overall... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3269783/6-podcasts-add-your-rotation-summer-maintenance-phase-uncanny-japan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3269783/6-podcasts-add-your-rotation-summer-maintenance-phase-uncanny-japan?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 Jul 2024 07:15:09 +0000 Whoever put together the programme blurb for Ambrose Akinmusire’s forthcoming concert of “smooth sounds” in Hong Kong was either underselling his artistry for wider appeal or needs to take a deeper dive into the American composer and jazz trumpeter’s back catalogue. It’s true, Akinmusire’s most recent release was a masterclass in subtle sonics that might be pleasing to the ear, but there’s not a whiff of lift Muzak about Owl Song, a delicate, late-night meditation teaming the trumpeter’s croon... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3269723/tracing-jazz-great-ambrose-akinmusires-relentless-sonic-muse-solo-horn-hip-hop-collabs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3269723/tracing-jazz-great-ambrose-akinmusires-relentless-sonic-muse-solo-horn-hip-hop-collabs?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Jul 2024 22:00:11 +0000 Among the best-known works of photographer and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto, Seascapes, begun in 1980, is a series of contemplative black-and-white images of the sea, identically sized and formatted. They are taken in various locations around the world using a large-format camera with exposures that can last hours. Patrick Lam Kwai-pui, founder and creative director of Hong Kong architecture and interior design firm Sim-Plex Design Studio, explains how it changed his life. I studied for a... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3269614/zen-spirit-japanese-photographer-hiroshi-sugimotos-monumental-seascapes-series?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3269614/zen-spirit-japanese-photographer-hiroshi-sugimotos-monumental-seascapes-series?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 10 Jul 2024 03:45:08 +0000 Wesley Jamison grew up in a musical household in the Paris suburbs and has always loved to sing, but because of his introverted nature and his parents’ experiences in the music industry, he did not seriously consider pursuing it as a career until he moved halfway across the world to Hong Kong. That was 10 years ago. Since then, he has come out of his shell, become a songwriter and helped promote the local hip hop and R&B scenes. “I repressed it a lot, I think. I had to leave […] to start feeling... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3268805/rb-singer-wesley-jamison-finding-audience-hong-kong-and-racial-fetishisation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3268805/rb-singer-wesley-jamison-finding-audience-hong-kong-and-racial-fetishisation?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 05 Jul 2024 09:15:08 +0000 On December 7, 1970, German chancellor Willy Brandt famously fell to his knees after laying a wreath of white flowers at the foot of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, in Warsaw, Poland. This gesture of penance, on behalf of Germany for crimes committed by the Nazis, was one of the first political apologies that was broadcast on television for the public to see. Today, that video clip constitutes the opening of Apologies, a three-channel video installation by Taiwanese-American artist and... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3269036/pope-macron-world-leaders-apologies-compiled-artists-hong-kong-show?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3269036/pope-macron-world-leaders-apologies-compiled-artists-hong-kong-show?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 04 Jul 2024 08:15:09 +0000 Steven Berkoff’s 1988 revival at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre of his own play Greek (1980), a reworking of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex updated to contemporary London, presented a confrontational, stylised, deconstructivist theatrical spectacle typical of the playwright, director and actor’s work. Sean Curran, co-founder and co-artistic director of innovative Hong Kong theatre company Theatre du Pif, tells Richard Lord how it changed his life. I was 23 and I’d been taking drama classes in Edinburgh,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3268801/romeo-and-juliet-bored-him-steven-berkoffs-play-greek-changed-sean-currans-life?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3268801/romeo-and-juliet-bored-him-steven-berkoffs-play-greek-changed-sean-currans-life?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Jul 2024 20:15:09 +0000 Before her return to music as rapper Dizzy Dizzo, Sydney-born Dominique Choy had a 10-year pop career that spanned three albums and multiple regional hits, such as “Ultraviolet” and “Slow to Warm” – nostalgia-inducing cuts beloved in Chinese karaoke. Choy’s first and second records were released by Alfa Music, one of Taiwan’s top labels in the 2000s that also hosted pop legends Jay Chou, Chyi Chin and Landy Wen. The then 18-year-old Choy, trained in classical piano, violin and drums, had close... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3267484/rapper-dizzy-dizzo-recalls-her-pop/modelling-years-and-talks-about-her-artistic-freedom?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3267484/rapper-dizzy-dizzo-recalls-her-pop/modelling-years-and-talks-about-her-artistic-freedom?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Jun 2024 09:15:11 +0000 Atelier Brancusi, part of Paris’ Pompidou Centre, is the perfectly preserved Parisian studio of Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957). Bequeathed by the Romanian artist to the French state following his death, it was reconstructed by architect Renzo Piano in the early 1990s after the original was damaged by flooding. Hong Kong artist Michael Lau Kin-man, best known for his designer toys, as well as for paintings and sculptures, tells Richard Lord how it changed his life. My first trip to Paris was in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3266909/how-constantin-brancusis-paris-studio-changed-hong-kong-designer-toymakers-life?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3266909/how-constantin-brancusis-paris-studio-changed-hong-kong-designer-toymakers-life?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Jun 2024 09:15:09 +0000 Twenty-two-year-old Sydneysider Chelsea Warner is a producer, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has travelled the world making music with the likes of American rappers Kid Cudi and Lil Durk, fellow Australian Guy Sebastian, Chinese singer Tia Ray, and now, K-pop stars. “There is always plenty to talk about and there are always places to find inspiration,” says Warner, on a video call from her hotel room in Seoul, South Korea. “Being a songwriter is very much about narrating the way... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3266894/australian-singer-songwriter-chelsea-warner-22-talks-moving-music-production?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3266894/australian-singer-songwriter-chelsea-warner-22-talks-moving-music-production?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Jun 2024 20:15:09 +0000 Self-proclaimed “Hong Kong Don” Haysen Cheng King-hei wants to be the rap equivalent of Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing – the late Cantopop icon who once propelled the genre to global heights. Twenty-four-year-old Cheng is not your typical guest at South China Morning Post HQ, rocking up with a meticulous buzz cut, his Chinese surname shaved into the back of his head, bling adorning his neck and wrists. His conspicuous appearance is paradoxical not only to the usually staid newsroom, but to the rapper’s... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3265610/leslie-cheung-rap-hong-kong-artist-haysen-cheng-his-struggles-rise-top?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3265610/leslie-cheung-rap-hong-kong-artist-haysen-cheng-his-struggles-rise-top?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 06 Jun 2024 09:15:09 +0000 The ballet Romeo and Juliet (composed in 1935 and first performed in 1938), one of the seminal works of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, sets Shakespeare’s story of doomed lovers from opposing clans to a modern soundtrack that includes every emotion from romance to drama to humour. Julie Liu, founder and designer at Hong Kong-based contemporary qipao brand Qipology, tells Richard Lord how it changed her life. I learned ballet for 14 years, from when I was four to when I went to university.... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3265287/romeo-and-juliet-changed-her-life-qipao-designer-ballet-dreams-her-qipology-brand?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3265287/romeo-and-juliet-changed-her-life-qipao-designer-ballet-dreams-her-qipology-brand?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Jun 2024 23:15:09 +0000 The phrase “less is more” is rarely more apt than when used to describe buncheong, a style of ceramics that originated in Korea in the 15th century and is revered for its distinctive style, characterised by a blue-green tone and intricate decorative designs. Once flourishing in Korea, buncheong all but disappeared from the country following the killing and abduction of ceramic artists during Japanese invasions in the 1590s, and was almost entirely replaced by porcelain from the 16th... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3265300/korean-traditional-ceramic-art-spotlight-modern-day-master-hosts-hong-kong-show-and-masterclass?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3265300/korean-traditional-ceramic-art-spotlight-modern-day-master-hosts-hong-kong-show-and-masterclass?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Jun 2024 08:15:09 +0000 When Abby Yuen started to immerse herself in dance music as a teenager, she wasted little time jumping into DJing. Now in her late twenties, the DJ and producer, who goes by the alias Just Bee, already has a decade of “vibe curator” experience behind her. For much of her adolescence and early adulthood in Hong Kong, she was plagued by an inability to make anything other than music stick – that was, until she got her ADHD diagnosis three years ago. “I was diagnosed quite late in life. I’d... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3264726/thrill-possibly-screwing-how-dj-adhd-found-her-groove-hong-kongs-drum-and-bass-scene-then-grew?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3264726/thrill-possibly-screwing-how-dj-adhd-found-her-groove-hong-kongs-drum-and-bass-scene-then-grew?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 30 May 2024 09:50:57 +0000 I come from a family of artists and my parents were both Hindustani classical musicians. My mother was the first female tabla (an Indian hand drum) player on the international stage. I was born in 1963 in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, one of the biggest states in India. When I was two years old, my father got a job as a professor at Delhi University and we moved there. My mother also worked at the university. Extended families, with cousins and uncles and aunts, are a big thing in India. But we were... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3264203/saurabh-shukla-going-theatre-defiance-his-indian-familys-wishes-film-roles-and-being-typecast?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3264203/saurabh-shukla-going-theatre-defiance-his-indian-familys-wishes-film-roles-and-being-typecast?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 27 May 2024 03:35:12 +0000 From the 1930s through to the 70s, the Scottish artist Anna M. Hotchkis’ vibrant watercolours of China and Hong Kong were much sought after and regularly exhibited. So, too, were those of her friend and companion, the American artist Mary Augusta Mullikin. The two women travelled across China together, shared a hutong studio in Beijing and both painted numerous scenes of Beijing and northern China. They also collaborated on several books. Today, the pair are rarely remembered. Hotchkis still... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3263764/intrepid-women-artists-china-who-documented-country-one-painting-time-almost-forgotten-today?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3263764/intrepid-women-artists-china-who-documented-country-one-painting-time-almost-forgotten-today?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 May 2024 10:15:10 +0000 Emerging from a six-year hiatus, Cantopop diva Sandy Lam Yik-lin thrilled the audience over three nights at the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s half-century anniversary shows celebrating the city’s prolific musical history. Since it became a professional orchestra, in 1974, the HK Phil has regularly collaborated with Cantopop stars, weaving classical and popular music together. Conducted by Lio Kuokman and directed by Harris Ho Bing-shung, the performances hit the mark with nostalgia-inducing set lists... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3263914/cantopop-diva-sandy-lam-yik-lin-wows-crowd-hong-kong-philharmonic-orchestras-50th-anniversary-shows?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3263914/cantopop-diva-sandy-lam-yik-lin-wows-crowd-hong-kong-philharmonic-orchestras-50th-anniversary-shows?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 May 2024 09:15:10 +0000 In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, mandalas are an object of meditation that aid focus and help with a person’s spiritual growth, the geometric designs – mostly circular – made up of repetitive colours, shapes and patterns. The intricate designs of the Tibetan sand mandalas can take days or even weeks to complete. Hong Kong-based art consultant Chun Poon saw parallels between the making of mandalas and an artist’s creative process, from the idea to completion, which can span months. He saw... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3263825/how-painting-calms-mind-meditation-artists-hong-kong-group-show-therapy-repetition?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3263825/how-painting-calms-mind-meditation-artists-hong-kong-group-show-therapy-repetition?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 May 2024 10:40:07 +0000 As a struggling young Chinese artist and actor in 1960s Britain, Michael Chow saw there were only two paths to making his fortune: open a restaurant or a laundry. He chose restaurant. It would be no ordinary noodle shop, however; dining at his restaurant would be far more than just eating a meal. Metaphorically donning the embroidered platform boots and stage robes of his father, venerated Peking opera grandmaster Zhou Xinfang, each night Chow would walk an invisible stage, and transform his... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3262889/they-said-michael-chow-was-too-chinese-be-artist-so-he-opened-restaurant-look-him-now?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3262889/they-said-michael-chow-was-too-chinese-be-artist-so-he-opened-restaurant-look-him-now?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 May 2024 08:15:10 +0000 Accounts of prison camp life under the Japanese during the Pacific war years, whether in Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies (modern Indonesia), Thailand, or other parts of Southeast Asia, all mention amateur theatrical productions, concerts and musical recitals. Staged to help pass the time, which otherwise dragged heavily and slowly, these performances provided a welcome distraction, for both performers and audiences, from the depressing everyday circumstances of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3262210/how-hong-kong-pows-used-every-inch-innovation-fashion-costumes-amateur-theatre-productions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3262210/how-hong-kong-pows-used-every-inch-innovation-fashion-costumes-amateur-theatre-productions?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 May 2024 00:15:12 +0000 Combining post-punk, psychedelic electronica and memorably foul-mouthed Cantonese lyrics, Nan Yang Pai Dui (NYPD) kicked down the doors to Hong Kong’s indie scene six years ago with songs such as “Block 18”, “Mee & Gee” and “Gai Gai”. These unapologetically local bangers nodded to, respectively, a hole-in-the-wall Cantonese street-food chain, cult second-hand clothing stores and a humble dessert spot in Jordan, Kowloon, serving traditional southern Chinese tong sui (sweet soup) since 1979. In... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3262105/hong-kong-post-punk-rockers-nan-yang-pai-dui-their-latest-album-and-playing-live-two-drummers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3262105/hong-kong-post-punk-rockers-nan-yang-pai-dui-their-latest-album-and-playing-live-two-drummers?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 May 2024 09:15:17 +0000 Untitled (1962), a free-standing sculpture, was made entirely from scavenged materials by Donald Judd, the high priest of 20th century minimalist art, who was also a prolific furniture designer. Hong Kong contemporary artist Wong Kit-yi, who in 2021 completed a residency with Judd’s Chinati Foundation, in Marfa, Texas, where the American artist lived, worked and owned a giant tract of desert land to display his work, tells Richard Lord how it changed her life. I went on the residency programme... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3261722/not-comfortable-how-donald-judds-art-and-furniture-taught-hong-kong-artist-secret-staying-fresh?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3261722/not-comfortable-how-donald-judds-art-and-furniture-taught-hong-kong-artist-secret-staying-fresh?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 08 May 2024 08:15:13 +0000 Although it was slightly before her time, Olivia Dawn Mok, better known as Xiaolin, has always been nostalgic for 1980s and early 90s Cantopop. And now the Hong Kong-based techno DJ and producer has initiated a vinyl-only three-part project, titled Moods for Love, to take old Cantonese love songs to a global audience. “Instead of trying to make techno club tracks in a pandemic,” she says of the Covid-era writing process, “I decided to make things I can listen to at home and feel warm and... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3261575/dj-records-covers-anita-mui-song-other-cantopop-hits-remind-world-hong-kongs-musical-influence?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3261575/dj-records-covers-anita-mui-song-other-cantopop-hits-remind-world-hong-kongs-musical-influence?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 May 2024 23:15:15 +0000 Halber Mensch (1985), the third album from seminal German experimental band Einstürzende Neubauten, blended their trademark early sound of harsh industrial noise, often created using instruments made by the band themselves from scrap metal, with a growing musical palette that also included electronic and even pastoral elements. Andrew Chan Hang-fai, artistic director of Hong Kong experimental theatre company Alice Theatre Laboratory, tells Richard Lord how it changed his life. I learned about... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3260887/how-industrial-music-album-halber-mensch-changed-artistic-directors-life-made-his-friends-start?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3260887/how-industrial-music-album-halber-mensch-changed-artistic-directors-life-made-his-friends-start?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 01 May 2024 09:15:22 +0000