Getting My Culture on in Hong Kong...

Yes, there is culture beyond poppy Canto-pop concerts, as blessed, numerous, and awesome as they are.

Hong Kong has its own ballet company, philharmonic orchestra, Chinese orchestra, opera, and active Academy for the Performing Arts, which hosts various cultural events such as plays, musicals, modern dance, as well as free recitals featuring Academy students.

Hong Kong is also host to various arts, literary, and film festivals, so there is quite a bit of horizon-enhancing cultural events. There are many museums in Hong Kong, and they offer free days every month. Speaking of free stuff, many of the aforementioned cultural events are free, or usually fairly affordable, especially for students and seniors, who often get up to 50% off the ticket prices.

So of course, I have been taking full advantage of this. These past couple of weeks, I have attended:

- On March 14: A HK Arts Festival performance by Modified Toy Orchestra, a totally awesome UK electronica group that plays instruments that are, well, modified toys. In essence, they troll garage sales, buy old electronic toys (i.e. toy keyboards, talking toys, learning toys, etc -- basically anything with a circuit board), and do something called "circuit bending" in order to make the toys play new, different sounds. These guys took things like Speak N' Spells, Casio mini keyboards, talking Barbie-like dolls, and other electronic toys, and made some kick ass music. They even altered a toy rocket that teaches kids how to count in Mandarin. One of the funnest moments was when they rocked out on toy guitars and toy saxophones. They even had a toy double guitar....rock on, dude. Check them out online: http://www.myspace.com/toyorch

I thoroughly enjoyed this performance. If I had to gripe (oh, who am I kidding, I LOVE to gripe), it would be about the annoying dude behind me who kept screaming "Whoo-Hoo" every other minute. Normally, I love audience enthusiasm...just not directly in my ear.

- On March 28: A lovely performance by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, which consists of all-Chinese instruments, such as the Erhu, the Pi-pa, etc. The theme of the performance was "Shanghai", which, as you all know, has a special place in my heart. The orchestra played a wonderful mix of Shanghai-themed music, including the theme of "ShanghaiBund", developed for the 1980s TV series starring Chow Yun -Fat, set in 1930s Shanghai. They also played Western music, such as polka pieces from Strauss, as well as a suite from Carmen. They also played the entire "Butterfly Lovers" suite, from the well-known Chinese opera. Hearing ancient Chinese instruments play these familiar pieces was quite a treat. The instruments have a special sound and power to them, and the sound (and sight) of the orchestra was quite magical. The instruments were interesting, and seeing the orchestra, resplendent in their royal purple Chinese-style robes, playing in perfect unison, was amazing. My favorite piece was one of the Strauss polkas, in which the strings were played, not using the traditionally bows, but plucked by hand. Utterly lovely, and an utterly new sound. The conductor, who turned out to be a Shanghai native whose father wrote many of the lyrics for the classic Shanghai songs played that evening, was an absolute delight to watch. I normally don't pay very much attention to conductors, but this man was like an extension of the music...he moved, nay danced, vividly, as he conducted. I normally roll my eyes when diva conductors leave the stage after a piece only to return minutes later for the next piece, in order, in my view, to garner more applause, but for this guy, I think he totally deserved every clap. The orchestra was a delight, and have some other interesting upcoming events (like a global erhu relay!)...check them out at: http://www.hkco.org/index_eng.asp

I thoroughly enjoyed this performance. If I had to gripe (oh, who am I kidding, I LOVE to gripe), it would be about the annoying lady behind me who sang along with the orchestra. Normally, I love audience enthusiasm, but when you're at an orchestral performance, and not a sing-along, pipe down so others can appreciate the music! This is an orchestra, not bloody karaoke! And like all good Asian citizens, the surrounding audience members all shot her disapproving looks, rather than telling her to shut the eff up, and she eventually got the message. Viva la passive aggressive, threat of society shunning pressures of the Chinese culture! But despite that blip, the orchestra was wonderful, and truly deserved their standing ovation at the end of the night.

- On March 27 and March 29: The Hong Kong Dancesport Festival and International Dancesport Competition, in all its spray-tanned, flesh-baring, garishly sequinned, ruffled, spandexed glory. But why, you ask? Well, as a fan of Dancing with the Stars, I admit to having a great admiration for ballroom dancing, and all of its funny, fodder-producing quirks. All of the glitz aside, it truly is a sport and an art to perform such intricate, beautiful dances, and is a true celebration of music and the grace of the human form. And the glitz is fun. The over-the-topness of everything makes things fun. The Mar. 27 daytime session was the quarter-finals for various competitions (i.e. amateur ballroom/latin, junior ballroom/latin, professional ballroom/latin, etc.) There were multiple heats for each competition, with multiple dances for each competition. Each heat danced the same dances to the same music, and it was quite a frenzy watching 12 couples storm the floor at a time. I don't know how the judges are able to judge appropriately, what with so many couple whirling around...I wanted to watch everyone, but ended up focusing on one or two who may have had the flashiest costumes, or the most striking moves. I prefer ballroom (or "standard") to latin, as it evokes mellow, elegant, Fred and Ginger-esque grace, which I adore. Plus I love the music they play, classic, old school stuff you'd hear from the Fred and Ginger era. Since it was the quarter-finals, not a whole lot of people showed uptp watch, so I got cheap tix for decent seats, and also got to see competitors up close, in their full on sequinned, hairsprayed , made up, spray-tanned glory. And this applies to both men and women! Speaking of spray-tans, I think this is the one aspect of Chinese culture that shuns the lily-white, porcelain, tofu skin complexions...all competitors, regardless of age, were tanned a dark, golden color. It was quite jarring to see so many Chinese girls tanned so dark...it felt odd indeed...

The costumes for ballroom are the usual foofy swirly gowns, often in bold, bright colors, with lots of sequin or ruffly detailing. The fluorescent greens and oranges were hard to take, so I often cheered for the gals with more simpler gowns, in less flashy colors like white or pale pinks. The latin costumes were, of course, much flashier and sexier...and that includes the men's costumes...across the board, latin -dancing men had shirts slashed open to reveal spray-tanned, waxed chests...and similarly, the ladies showed as much skin as possible, too, with short skirts, low necklines with lots of cutouts, or simply bandeau tops with some sheer fabric draped strategically. I did appreciate one couple, where the girl opted to dance in a strapless dress with a much longer, form-fitting skirt (think pencil skirt, knee length)...granted, it was super tight, and sequinned all over, but she was going for something different, and I think it helped them stand out. The juniors had much more modest costumes (and dance moves), but I still got the impression of little girls playing grown-up, ala child beauty queens, with the heavy makeup, overdone hair, and spray tans, etc....they danced very well, though, and I estimate the youngest were probably 11 or 12 years old, so that makes it less eeky, I guess.

If I had to gripe (oh, who am I kidding, I LOVE to gripe), it would be that the people from the different dance schools/associations cheered obnoxiously during the actual dancing...Picture all these unruly hoots of "jia you" (yep, they were a mainland China dance school) drowning out Sinatra singing "Just the Way You Look Tonight" (one of my fave Sinatra songs ever), as the competitors gracefully dance a waltz. Not cool, dude. Cheering boisterously during a more upbeat latin song is cool, since it further fires up the dancers and the atmosphere, but just seems wrong for quieter, more elegant dances.

The March 29 evening session was the finals for the competition, and also included exhibition performances from world-ranked professionals. The finals came down to six couples in each category, and they were truly the cream of the crop, dancing quite amazingly. The professional performers were awesome, too, and funnily enough, were names I recognized from Dancing with the Stars (i.e. Victor Fung from America). Great stuff. One of my faves was the tango performed to Beethoven's 5th...the professional latin couple from Poland was wonderful too, sharp sharp moves and innovative choreography. And the guy shunned sequins and stayed in a simple black turtleneck for all of his performances, so word up. I also liked how during intermission, they actually invited audience members to dance on the dance floor. And couples actually did! Dance culture is huge there, especially for the more mature set...I can easily see my Mom attending something like this, and being the first one on the dance floor...

If I had to gripe (oh, who am I kidding, I LOVE to gripe), it would be that the language issues in the MC-ing (they had to MC in English, Mandarin and Cantonese) seemed to inhibit audience applause...for example, the English MC would say "Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for...", and there would be silence as performers entered the dance floor, because the majority of the audience didn't understand English. When they finally realized that they should announce things like that in both English and Chinese, the audience began clapping accordingly, and the atmosphere became less awkward and more welcoming for the performers, so that worked out much better...

Overall though, it is very easy to get your culture on in Hong Kong. If you still have energy after all the eating and shopping, you will find lots of great events to go to...aside from the few I mentioned above, I also went to a couple of literary festival events and film talks, all free, and all quite interesting...so while Canto-pop concerts are the bomb, you should also consider balancing out the bubblegum poppiness with other cultural events...and Hong Kong, thankfully, makes it easy to do so.