Back for a 34th edition, the Macao Arts Festival offers an eclectic programme this year. There are 19 different shows in addition to a varied outreach programme of meet-the-artist sessions, backstage tours, lectures and workshops. A major exhibition of 18th and 19th-century paintings, highlighting the cultural intersection of East and West that Macao has long been known for, is also on the cards.
Read on for our pick of five must-see shows this year and mark your calendar. Tickets to the Macao Arts Festival are available here. There’s also a Mother’s Day discount on certain programmes.
Jungle Book reimagined
The festival’s grand opening on 3 May is a showstopper. British choreographer Akram Khan’s interpretation of Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 classic The Jungle Book explores the much more timely topic of climate change. Khan uses the performance to explore the threat humankind poses toward nature, noting that “we have forgotten our connection to our home, our planet.”
Khan is one of the most celebrated choreographers in the world of contemporary dance and one of five dancers featured on the Netflix show Move, a documentary series that pays tribute to “the art of movement.”
When: 3-4 May
Where: Grand Auditorium at Macao Cultural Centre
How much: From 120 to 380 patacas
Duck Pond
Australia’s Circa ensemble, a contemporary circus group, returns to Macao to perform Duck Pond, a cross between Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake and Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Ugly Duckling.
Directed by Australian director Yaron Lifschitz, the production draws from the Russian ballet masterpiece and the timeless children’s story to create its own touchingly funny narrative of identity and search for self, captivating audiences with high-energy acrobatics and stunning costumes.
An advanced circus performance workshop led by Circa’s touring director is slated for 15 May for participants aged 16 or above with prior dance or acrobatic experience. A family workshop for children between 8 and 12 years old, accompanied by an adult, will take place on 19 May.
When: 17-19 May
Where: Grand Auditorium at Macao Cultural Centre
How much: From 120 to 380 patacas
Sleeping Beauty
Presented by Spanish National Dance award winner Marcos Morau and France’s Lyon Opera Ballet, this is a contemporary imagining of Tchaikovsky’s famous 1890 ballet.
Combining dance, music and lighting in a show encapsulates the singular approach of the Catalan choreographer, the production reinvents the classic story, transporting it to the present time – as if Sleeping Beauty had awakened from her long slumber today.
It also marks the return of the Lyon Opera Ballet to Macao, nearly two decades since their last performance in the city.
Ticket-holders can join a backstage tour given by the crew on 25 and 26 of May.
When: 24-26 May
Where: Grand Auditorium at Macao Cultural Centre
How much: From 120 to 380 patacas
Anamnesis no.: XXXX
Local group Dirks Theatre presents this adaptation of Equus, one of the most celebrated works of the late British playwright Peter Shaffer. Cleverly underscoring the flimsy boundary between sanity and madness, it tells the story of a teenager who blinds six horses with a spike and the psychiatric treatment he undergoes in the wake of his brutal act.
Projections will be used to reconstruct the narrative’s time and space, putting a contemporary spin to the play, which is performed in Cantonese.
Dirks Theatre is helmed by Wu May Bo and Ip Ka Man – both of them directors and actors – and is known for its edgy approach.
When: 24-26 May
Where: Box II at Macao Cultural Centre
How much: 240 patacas
Macbettu
An adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy by Italian director Alessandro Serra, Macbettu (as Macbeth is said in the Sardinian language) has won multiple awards, including the 2017 Ubu award – Italy’s highest prize for the performing arts.
The play features an all-male cast, just as Britain’s King James I would have seen it in 1606, when the play was first performed in front of him.
Set in a “Barbagia,” an imaginary region of inner Sardinia, the show is performed in Sardinian with subtitles in English and Chinese. Audiences are promised “a spectacle of images, sounds and hypnotic gestures.”
A pre-show talk on the piece will be organised on 25 May.
When: 25-26 May
Where: Small Auditorium at Macao Cultural Centre
How much: 300 patacas
