Editor’s note: Tisa Ho Kar-kuan has been executive director of Hong Kong Arts Festival since 2006. In an exclusive interview with China Daily Hong Kong, Ho discusses the festival’s 50th iteration, the challenges of mounting it during the third year of the pandemic and the city’s most severe viral wave to date, and how the festival has evolved over the years.

Tisa Ho Kar-kuan, HKAF’s executive director since 2006. Whether the festival is presenting shows in person or online, “we’re remaining true to our mission of presenting the greatest stars as well as latest trends in the performing arts,” she says. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

It’s a milestone year, this being the 50th Hong Kong Arts Festival. In what year did you attend your first HKAF and how has the event changed since then?

I recall some fabulous performances at the City Hall Concert Hall in the early years — notably, a recital by soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf at the inaugural festival in 1973. I didn’t know the music but was absolutely transported by her voice, her expressiveness and her incandescent personality on stage. I hope our audiences still feel similar vibes. I know many are much more informed and discerning than I was back then. 

The festival has grown a lot since the early years, and includes our own productions of local work, adding to the canon; and we publish the scripts to encourage other productions. We also produce site-specific performances now, and of course there is digital content online. What has not changed is the balance of classical repertoire and works representing new trends. Our mission is still to catalyze and support development of the sector in Hong Kong — through curation of programs as well as our extensive Plus (ancillary events related to the shows) and educational work including the Young Friends scheme, which marks its 30th anniversary this year. Taken together, it’s a rich, future-looking palette, and embraces a diversity that’s reflective of Hong Kong itself.

In an age in which so much is consumed digitally and online, what is the role of an arts festival in the community? How can it compete with the overwhelming amount of content out there?

The arts, including this festival, is also digital and online as well as in person. I am enormously glad that we have this possibility, given the present restrictions on gathering. But more than that, it gives us new and exciting possibilities. Just as we have both digital and in-person options in many aspects of life, so too should this be in the arts. Even when venues are opening (back up) and travelling is possible, I’m sure that digital will continue to be a part of the arts world, and of HKAF. This is not binary: it’s about having both — and potentially exponential in terms of how much work can be produced, how it is produced and how it connects with audiences. As in so many other areas of life, this is a disruptor and will impact everything: structures, hierarchies, business models, relationships. Some traditions will remain, but there will be new options. Therefore, this is not a matter of competition, but of enormous and enormously exciting potential, which we fully embrace as adding to the diversity of the festival as a whole.

The immersive opera Laila is among the productions in HKAF-50 that have been postponed rather than moved online. Having deconstructed Western opera, the program’s creators will present the art form via various AI-driven technologies: AR, VR, motion tracking, sound mixing and visual projections. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

How does it feel to be staging the festival in this third year of the pandemic, especially during your jubilee year? How is this year different from last year and 2020, based on what you’ve learned about handling last-minute program changes, and remaining flexible and resilient in the face of the pandemic?

This year we had planned with limited international travel in mind, and aimed to produce a hybrid festival of a scale and scope appropriate to a 50th anniversary year for us, Hong Kong SAR’s 25th, and City Hall’s 60th — this venue that has been such an important part of the festival’s journey over the past 50 years.

One of the team’s strengths is to plan meticulously, and the experience of the last few years means that we now usually have several levels of contingency planning embedded in the process. What is more challenging is deciding which contingency plan to activate when the situation is not clear, and waiting with several plans on hand is perhaps the most challenging emotionally. 

This is a mission-driven team. We want to do the work, see the performances presented, work with artists and communicate with audiences. We’ve had to stop all in-person activity for the moment. It’s hard not knowing when we can resume. But of course we’re not alone, either in the arts community or in this city as a whole — so our story is very much part of the Hong Kong story at this time.

Since many shows have had to suddenly move online or be postponed due to the fifth wave, would you say something about HKAF-50 as it looks now? Please tell us about how you see people enjoying and celebrating this year’s festival, in spite of the challenges.

It will be online for the moment, both in terms of viewing some truly world-class artists and productions, including award-winning videos; and also with boundary-pushing, real-time, interactive online shows. So we’re remaining true to our mission of presenting the greatest stars as well as latest trends in the performing arts. I hope our audiences will find much to enjoy, while looking forward to connecting in person in venues as soon as that is possible.

TM is a live, interactive, one-on-one experience. Presented as a job interview with a shadowy organization, the online show explores themes of media manipulation, populist ideology and conspiracy theories. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

You’ve mentioned the immersive opera Laila — which has unfortunately been delayed due to the viral wave — as a major highlight of the 2022 festival. What makes this production so special?

It’s taking one of the most complex and structured art forms — Western opera — taking it apart, and doing it entirely differently using multiple forms of existing technology. The technology — AR, VR, motion tracking, sound mixing, visual projections, all driven by AI — allows a level of agency for the audience that results in a completely new relationship between the work’s creators and its audience. I don’t think Laila represents the ultimate destination of Arts x Tech. We don’t know where that will be yet, but Laila is a big part of the journey. And it is significant in the 50th year of the festival. 

Can you share something about the artists who decided to participate in the festival despite the need to quarantine?

Logistics are a big part of organizing any festival, and we do our best to look after artists, both around their travel and after arrival, so that they’re in the best possible condition for their performances with us. The challenges are special this year, and we have worked to be clear about things like documentation regarding tests and proof of vaccination, reminding and helping to check everything ahead of time. It is especially challenging when policies or practices change at short notice so we have to reschedule and rebook, when flights are infrequent and rooms are in high demand. The schedule of necessary tests adds another item to the artists’ diary that we have to take into account. 

One of the benefits of having visiting artists is that they become our ambassadors, both for the festival and the city. Many are very impressed, especially when those who haven’t been here before can see for themselves how dynamic and beautiful this city is, and how we live and work. Sometimes they’re surprised because what they see is not what’s reported about us.

To Be a Machine investigates human beings’ relationship with technology and our bodies, including in the context of our pandemic-induced sense of dislocation. Jack Gleeson, of Game of Thrones fame, stars. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

In 2020, you said the new normal is “all about finding and exploring new possibilities, new ways of telling stories and interacting with audiences”. What are some examples from the 2022 program of novel audience experiences?

There are several really interesting digital works in this festival, including TM, a theater work which is a one-on-one performance, with one actor playing to one audience. This is by the Belgian company Ontroerend Goed, which was such a hit with £¥€$ (Lies) at a previous festival. The concept in TM is that you’re being interviewed to join a mysterious global organization. The audience is asked to respond to a few simple questions — and there are no right or wrong answers — and it’s fascinating how the idea of what the conversation is really about gradually dawns. Rather like Laila, this show has been described as one that “tears up theater’s rule book”, and I think that in doing so, it has gone to the heart of what theater is about: connecting with the audience. There is also To Be a Machine, which inhabits a space between live and digital theater, and also features Jack Gleeson from the hit series Game of Thrones.

You’ve mentioned that the pandemic has accelerated developments in performance designed for digital delivery. Can you share some examples?

Artists need to work, and many understand the value that a great performance can bring to life. An early initiative was from Yo-Yo Ma, who played short pieces and put them online for anyone to enjoy. It was heartwarming and life-affirming and such direct communication with the listener. At last year’s festival, we presented an interactive work called The Journey, in which the artist (Scott Silven) in Europe engaged an audience located in a different continent — in our case, here in Hong Kong — live. We produced an online version of The Plague last year; again, played in real time, with the cast of six in Brazil, China, England, Lebanon, South Africa and the US, and the director and technicians in Hong Kong. We also presented the thought-provoking Pathetic Fallacy and the brilliant Blindness, both international works shown to audiences in Hong Kong with no travel on the part of the artists.

I think reaching out beyond the walls of venues and opening up to audiences in different locations were ideas that were already in play: the metaverse offers a whole new space in which to connect. These ideas would have been explored in any case, but with COVID, there was an urgent need to try out alternative ways of producing work, and connecting with audiences and each other. We’ve accelerated development, driven by necessity.

A postponed in-person production, Colossus will showcase Stephanie Lake’s intricate choreography and the skills of the HKAPA’s dancers. With a cast of more than 50 dancers, the powerful work explores chaos and order, and relationships between the individual and the collective. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Technology is also facilitating collaboration between artists who cannot meet in person. What are the most striking, impressive or successful examples of this in the current festival?

Remote rehearsals for Colossus immediately spring to mind, with dancers in Hong Kong working with the choreographer, Stephanie Lake, in Melbourne via Zoom. 

What are your plans for the future? How do you see the Arts Festival’s line-up evolving as Hong Kong continues integrating with the Greater Bay Area?

I think that Arts x Tech will continue to be important, and we will continue to present wonderful international artists, and work with the amazing local talent we have at home. The very rapid developments in the Greater Bay Area, especially in terms of new venues, offer new opportunities to stretch our capacities, both in presenting under the HKAF brand and in terms of new collaborations. At the same time, as new venues are filled and new festivals emerge in our neighborhood, we need to stay well informed about the bigger picture, the more complex environment with more active players, so that we can stimulate and to be stimulated by what is happening in the sector, and continue to add value to this ecology.