3. Freespace Dance

West Kowloon’s art programmes are in full swing. Popfest, the city’s new pop music festival, took place in March, and now the cultural organisation is introducing Freespace Dance, a fourweek festival with five programmes that feature talents from Hong Kong, Germany, Belgium, Israel and France. With a focus on spotlighting female choreographers, the festival explores gender, power relations and politics through different cultures and genres. It opens with the Asian premiere of She Legend, a performance by Hamburg duo Lisa Rykena and Carolin Jüngst that explores the queer potential of the comic superhero universe. Celebrated local choreographer Mui Cheuk-yin presents Double Happiness: The Promise of Red, which questions the commitment and sincerity of traditional marriage rituals. Crowd by French Austrian choreographer Gisèle Vienne, co-presented by Freespace Dance, Van Cleef & Arpels and French May Arts Festival, closes the festival with a whimsical slow-motion portrayal of hedonistic ecstasy at a rave.

From 14 April to 7 May. The Box, Freespace, West Kowloon. Find out more at westkowloon.hk.

In case you missed: A brand new Coco Chanel-inspired ballet show premieres in Hong Kong this month

4. Ventriloquists' Stone by Nadim Abbas

Hong Kong artist Nadim Abbas is known for his modular, architectural installations which challenge ideas of how our perception functions. In this exhibition, the artist constructs a surreal landscape, taking inspiration from the Magic Art of the Great Humbug chapter in The Wizard of Oz. Drawing from a range of design sources such as ancient gardens and mini golf courses, it plays with our sense of scale; urban building typologies; and memories of characters from fairy tales and stories, such as monsters and munchkins, through the theatrical manipulation of light, sound and performance.

Until July 30. Oi! Art Space, 12 Oil Street, North Point.

5. Sites of Wounding: Chapter 1 by Jes Fan and Screen-Skins by Tishan Hsu

This spring, Empty Gallery presents two exhibitions featuring artists Jes Fan and Tishan Hsu, whose works were featured at last year’s Venice Biennale.

Hong Kong-raised, Brooklyn-based Fan’s new body of work builds on his previous enquiries into identity construction through the relationship between non-biological and biological materials. Inspired by Hong Kong’s once-thriving pearl farming and fishing industries and alluding to its Pearl of the Orient moniker, his new works feature the pinctada fucata pearl, which is native to Hong Kong waters and which he has cultivated with embedded foreign materials. In the dimly lit exhibition space, the smooth-edged sculptures rise out of the floors and walls, in a look reminiscent of natural landscapes.

Screen-skins is a continuation of Hsu’s exploration into themes of surveillance, technology and mortality. The new iterations of his tactile Skin Screen Grass, a mixed-media piece consisting of materials including silkscreen ink and acrylic, warp and mimic the effect of digital screens, building on his older work which depicted an abstract version of such screens. At its core, his work asks how being immersed in the world of screens affects our cognition and relationship with our bodies.

6. Hong Kong International Film Festival

The city’s biggest festival of international films highlights major names this year. Dedicated to the late French New Wave giant Jean-Luc Godard, a provocateur known for his unconventional camerawork and disjointed narrative style, the festival will feature eight films starring his muse and ex-wife, Anna Karina.

The festival also celebrates the 90th birthday of the late maverick Japanese director Itami Juzo with a retrospective of his ten films, which have all been digitally restored. Itami was the son of another legendary director, Itami Mansaku, and is known for his humorous, sensual, surreal satires and comedies that confront the absurdity of Japanese conservative social aspects. This year’s filmmaker-in-focus is Soi Cheang, a key figure among Hong Kong’s post-1997 generation of directors and notable for his sombre visual style. Cheang left his native Macau and forged a career in Hong Kong, having worked as a production assistant for Johnnie To. His 2021 serial killer film noir Limbo was well-received by audiences; the following year it won three Golden Horse Awards, two Asian Film Awards and a Hong Kong Film Award.

From March 30 to April 10. Various locations.

7. Hong Kong Sinfonietta

Yip Wing-sie, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s (HKS) long-time conductor and one of the most respected female musical leaders in Asia, will be replaced by German conductor and violinist Christoph Poppen from the 2023/24 season onwards. Catch Yip at her last few performances as HKS’s music director this month. The line-up includes a concert with French clarinettist Raphaël Sévère featuring the works of Stravinsky, Mozart and Copland; and the world premiere of new pieces HKS commissioned, performed by Sévère and French violist Adrien La Marca.

From April 15 to 22. Hong Kong City Hall. Find out more at https://hksl.org/.

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