17-year wait for Hong Kong's arts hub too long? Think again

The West Kowloon Cultural District was proposed in 1998 by then-chief executive Tung Chee-hwa. Today, West Kowloon remains bereft of any permanent cultural infrastructure. Hopefully, the visual arts-focused M+ Museum and a dozen or so performing arts venues will be completed and opened soon. It has, after all, been 16 years.

In ancient China, there were no fixed venues for entertainment and performances. And most of what are considered “performing arts” today were simply entertainment in pre-modern times.

Religious compounds, such as Taoist and Buddhist temples, were the focal points of most communities, and where people went for entertainment on feast days. In fact, when Buddhism arrived from India, during the Eastern Han dynasty (AD25-220), many Buddhist temples put on shows during religious festivals to attract potential converts. Large-scale street performances became the norm in the Tang dynasty (618-907), when urban thoroughfares would be closed for music, singing, dancing and acrobatics.

Whether in the temples or streets, however, entertainment venues were always temporary. It was only in the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127) that permanent entertainment venues appeared. These large compounds housing theatres were vital to the development of xiqu. With its unique amalgamation of singing, music, acting and acrobatics, this theatrical form was quite different from European opera, despite its unfortunate misnomer: “Chinese opera”.