Five highlights from Le French May 2015 festival
Hip hop, a Moliere play, Le Corbusier, absurdist comedy and music from a Renaissance royal court - four performances and an exhibition that illustrate the breadth of this year's celebration of French culture in Hong Kong.
The annual Le French May is back with another diverse programme. Under the title "Essentially French", the festival is presenting more than 120 events in arts and culture across two months. Here are five favourites from the festival's performances and exhibitions.
It's an absurdist comedy that keeps on giving. In February and March last year, the works of a French street artist named Invader were deemed a public hazard by Hong Kong's Highways Department, which duly wiped out most of the pieces from the streets and prompted a bemused response from him: this was the first time his works were systematically removed by a local government in any of the more than 60 cities in which he has worked. After a replica of one of the removed pieces fetched HK$1.96 million in a January auction here, Invader is returning with a full-scale exhibition. Titled "Wipe Out" (but could well be named "Rub In"), it will showcase the pieces made for Hong Kong, alongside videos, LED artworks and monumental sculptures.
May 1-17, PMQ
A giant of modern architecture, Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, 1887-1965) is renowned for his designs of iconic buildings such as the Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France; Villa Savoye at Poissy, France; and the Parliament Building in Chandigarh, India. It's a fitting arrangement that the Swiss-French architect's first major retrospective in Hong Kong is to be housed inside City Hall, which was designed in the international style he pioneered. Curated by the architect and historian Pascal Mory and divided into three sections, the exhibition will cover Le Corbusier's wide-ranging creative life, not just in architecture, but also as a designer, painter, sculptor, writer and urban planner.
May 5-28, Hong Kong City Hall Exhibition Hall
As part of 2009's Le French May, the hip hop troupe Accrorap presented Littlestories.com, a playful dance piece that blends hip hop with text and mime to evoke childhood memories from an adult's perspective. Returning to Hong Kong with his 2013 work The Roots (before further performances in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Taipei in the following weeks), the company's artistic director and choreographer Kader Attou again looks to examine the fluid boundary between hip hop and contemporary dance. With his ensemble of 11 dancers, the French-born Algerian ponders the ordinary moments in life through a mix of European dance and breakdance moves to both classical and electronic music. A must-see for hip hop lovers.
May 16-17, Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre