Incredible works of Wu Guanzhong reimagined in Hong Kong dance crossover

Chinese painter Wu Guanzhong (1919-2010) remains one of the most important artists of the 20th century – a bridge-builder who combined traditional ink painting with the bold abstraction of Western modernism.

Later this month, the Hong Kong Dance Company (HKDance) will explore his visual language in the cross-disciplinary Grand Dance Poem In Between – Wu Guanzhong’s Ink Odyssey.

Co-presented with the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and co-organised by the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA), the production will be a highlight of both the French May Arts Festival and the Chinese Culture Festival 2026, which kicks off in June.

One of the show’s highlights will be to see how Wu’s visual language is translated into a sensory spectacle of dance, light and sound.

“It is a story of entrustment,” explains Nadia Lau, curator of the HKMoA, which holds the world’s largest public collection of Wu’s work – over 460 pieces. “In June 2010, just days before he passed away, Wu Guanzhong instructed his son to bring his final four paintings from Beijing to Hong Kong to donate to us. We held a reception that evening, and he passed away that same night. It was as if he could finally let go, knowing his last works were safely entrusted to the public.”

This trust was not given lightly. Wu’s relationship with the museum dates back to 1985. Lau recalls a pivotal moment in 2002 when curators grouped three works – Two Swallows (1981), Former Residence of Qiu Jin (1988), and Reminiscences of Jiangnan (1996) – to be displayed together as a trilogy. “When Wu Guanzhong saw this, he later wrote that he was ‘captured’. He felt the museum truly understood the essence of what he was trying to do.”