Weekend Warrior: September 13-15

A quick digest of the coolest weekend happenings in Hong Kong.


Friday, September 13

Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance

Every year during the Mid-Autumn festival, people in Tai Hang take part in the annual ritual the fire dragon dance, which features a 67-meter dragon with 72,000 incense sticks, and held up by 300 performers. Legend has it that the people of Tai Hang village miraculously stopped a plague with a fire dragon dance in the 19th century. Since then, the ritual has become a yearly tradition attended by hundreds, and has since become part of China’s official intangible cultural heritage,

8:15pm until Saturday, 14 September at Causeway Bay. Free.

Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

HKLGFF was first founded in 1989 and is said to be the oldest LGBT film festival in Asia, and the event brings audiences a wide range of short and feature-length films from heart-warming comedies to heart-breaking dramas from around the world that explore the LGBTQ experience. For its 30th year, the festival will be presenting a jam-packed schedule featuring screenings and panel talks.

Highlights include the Hong Kong Retrospective, which features three Hong Kong films that explore LGBTI issues and their contributions to Hong Kong cinema. This includes Butterfly — which made it onto our list of iconic LGBT films from Hong Kong — about a married high school teacher who has to hide her sexuality because of societal norms and family pressure, and suddenly finds herself forced to confront her sexual identity after embarking on an affair with a free-spirited female singer-songwriter; and A Woman Is A Woman about two people — a middle-aged woman whose world comes crashing down after her husband discovers her transgender identity, and a teenage boy struggling with his gender identity — trying to overcome prejudices to find happiness.

Films on show include MOM + MOM, an Italian film about two women who want to have a child together and prepare for the unwelcome responses from society, friends and family; and The Shiny Shrimps (the festival’s opening film) about a French professional swimmer who keeps coming second and lets out a homophobic slur during a live TV interview, and as punishment is assigned to coach a gay water polo team ahead of the Gay Games in Croatia.

Check the website for cinema schedules and prices.

Until Sunday, September 22 at AMC Pacific Place, Ll 1, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway Road; Broadway Cinematheque, Prosperous Garden, 3 Public Square Street, Yaumatei; MOViE MOViE Cityplaza, 5/F, Cityplaza, 18 Taikoo Shing Road, Taikoo Shing; The ONE, 6-11/F, The ONE, 100 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui; PREMIERE ELEMENTS, 2/F ELEMENTS 1 Austin Road, West Kowloon; Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre, 2 Harbour Road, Wan Chai. [PRICE].

MadeinTYO Live in Hong Kong

Local rappers Dough-Boy, Fotan Laiki, Yung Takeem and The Low Mays will be kicking off the weekend with a night of rap, hip hop and trap music. If you like Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, Lil Yachty, Travis Scott, XXXTENTACION, Drake, Kanye West, then you’ll like these guys.

7:30pm to 11pm at This Town Needs, 1/F, Ocean One, 6 Shung Shun Street, Yau Tong, Kowloon. HK$380 (advance) HK$440 (at the door).

Artist Talk & Demonstration by Charlotte Mary Pack

Charlotte Mary Pack is a British ceramic artist who uses clay to create small animals to draw attention to declining wildlife and the natural world. She’ll be doing a simple demonstration making an animal with clay in 15 minutes.

6:30pm (Fri) and 2pm (Sat) at, Maison Huit, G/F, No 8A St Francis Street, Wan Chai. Free.

Symphonie Fantastique

Conductor Jaap van Zweden presents this programme of music that includes Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen or Songs of a Wayfarer, and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Songs of a Wayfarer will feature guest baritone Stephan Genz.

8pm to 10pm until Saturday, September 14 at Hong Kong Cultural Centre, 10 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui. HK$580, HK$480, HK$380, and HK$280.


Saturday, September 14

JoJo Ma Quartet

Saxophonist JoJo Ma and his quartet — comprising Chan Kam Ming on bass, Rod Chui on keys, and Samuel Chan on drums — will be performing some live jazz music at Peel Fresco for those of you who’d rather not spend Saturday night tearing up the dance floor in nearby LKF.

9:30pm at Peel Fresco Music Lounge, 49 G/F Peel Street, Soho, Sheung Wan. Free.

Original Rock Music

Original rock songs (not cover songs) will be performed at Central live house the Aftermath this weekend. Performances will come from Qi, Say Mosquito, and Evan Binkley.

8pm to 12am at The Aftermath Bar, L/G, 57-59 Wyndham Street, Central. Free.

Fire Aux & Yao at Terrible Baby

Hip hop, dancehall, house, and club tunes will be played at the Terrible Baby Music Room courtesy of Fire Aux and Yao.

9:30pm to 1am at Terrible Baby, 4/F Eaton HK, 380 Nathan Road, Jordan, Kowloon. Free.


Sunday, September 15

The World of Studio Ghibli’s Animation

If you’ve always wanted to take a selfie with No-Face or walk into the forest to visit Totoro, then good news: You might just get that chance here at this exhibition which will feature 3D models of iconic scenes taken from the studio’s beloved films, bringing its traditional pencil and paper illustrations and animated graphics to life. For years, Studio Ghibli — the Japanese animation studio behind these characters and founded by filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki — has been wowing audiences with beautifully animated masterpieces that feature fantastical worlds, lovable characters, and stories that resonate with young and old alike.

11am to 10pm until November 3 at Portal 6311, 1/F, 18 Sheung Yuet Rd, Kowloon Bay. HK$168 to HK$208 (adults, online) HK$118 to HK$148 (students and concessions), HK$360 to HK$450 (two adults and one child, and HK$100 for each extra child), HK$188 to HK$228 (adults, at the door), HK$128 to HK$168 (students and concessions, at the door), HK$408 to HK$540 (two adults and one child, and HK$100 for each extra child at the door).

Opening: Wing Po So, From the Body to the Body Through the Body

Wing Po So will present her first solo exhibition with de Sarthe called From the Body to the Body Through the Body, which features work on the artist’s ongoing exploration of Chinese medicinal materials. Through the use of corn — which is one of the most commonly used Chinese medicinal ingredients — Wing creates a “fictitious archeological reality” that includes petrified habitats and fossilized bones of a prehistoric crustacean-like creature made of clay and corncob, and an eleven-meter-long cocoon installation made mainly of dried corn silk. This exhibition will run until September 21.

11am to 7pm until September 21 at de Sarthe Gallery, 20/F Global Trade Square, 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Wong Chuk Hang. Free.

Matchbox Days Exhibition

Since January 22, 2019, Hong Kong-based artist Rachel Smith has been filling one matchbox per day with a “visual commentary of the past 24 hours” — imagine a sort of micro-diorama. The project began as a coping mechanism for her growing anxiety and the panic attacks she started experiencing around the start of the year. The project was only meant to last 30 days, but Smith soon passed that mark, and the result is a visual diary in novel form. You can check out some of the matchboxes here.

10am to 7pm until September 29 at H307, Veranda, PMQ, 35 Aberdeen Street, Central. Free.

Tai Kwun 101

As Tai Kwun approaches its one year anniversary, it will be displaying 101 objects related to its previous life as the Central Police Station.

11am to 8pm until Thursday, September 22 at Duplex Studio LG1/F & LG2/F, Block 01 & Site-wide, Tai Kwun, 10 Hollywood Rd, Central. Free.



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