The VICAS-Zuni Hong Kong-ASEAN Cultural Synergy and Strategy Forum: The Role of Higher Education (henceforth, “The Forum”) aims to strengthen artistic and cultural engagement between Hong Kong and ASEAN countries by fostering collaboration among practitioners, scholars, and intellectuals. By leveraging the institutional roles of Zuni Icosahedron (Zuni) and the Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Arts Studies (VICAS), the Forum seeks to nurture creative and visionary human resources, develop a regional collaboration framework for cultural leadership, and explore future networking models for a cross-cultural creative think tank. Building on the fruits of the Bangkok conference in 2022, this two-day conference is intended to lay the groundwork for a three-year roadmap for collaboration between VICAS and Zuni. The forum will take place after the performance at the Hanoi Opera House on the 18th.

Date: 2024.12.19-20 (Thu-Fri)

Venue: VICAS Building

• Brian Wong (Executive Advisor, Zuni Icosahedron, Conference Rapporteur and Chief Researcher)

• Danny Yung (Founder, Zuni Icosahedron, Conference Co-Convenor)

• Yuewai Wong (Executive Director, Zuni Icosahedron | Conference Core Team)

• Xiaoyi Liu (Artistic Director, Emergency Stairs, Conference Co-Rapporteur and Chief Summary Provider, Conference Core Team)

• Alexandra Seno (Director, Asian Cultural Council)

• Alice Mong (President, Asia Society Hong Kong Center)

• Khun Chatvichai Promadhattavedi (Founding Director, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre)

• Eliott Suen (Executive Director, Marga Group)

• Rachel Cooper (Director of Global Performing Arts and Special Cultural Initiatives, Asia Society)

• William Hanbury-Tenison (Formerly Director and Chief Representative, East China at Jardine Matheson (China) Limited)

• Minli Han (Founder and Director, Filmgarde Cineplexes)

• Dr. Ernest Lim (Dean of Faculty of Performing Arts, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts)

• Prof. Makoto Matsushima (Guest Professor, Choreography Department, Korea National University of the Arts)

• Rady Nget (Classical Cambodian and Contemporary Dance Artist)

Relentlessly, I have been looking for the origin of the wusheng (combating male) role in xiqu. I, naturally, first started this searching journey through reading wuxia novels (martial arts and chivalry novels, a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China), followed by watching wuxia action movies, and then experiencing the cultural world of wuxia. I found the plots and some details employed in wuxia novels and movies coincided well with my history and geography curricula in school, such as Mount Hua and Mount Wudong mentioned in geography class; and in history class, the Humiliation of Jingkang (an incident circa 1172 marked the fall of Northern Song dynasty), as well as the Diary of the Ten Days of Yangzhou (a daily log from the year 1645, a year after the Manchus took Beijing, marking the end of the Ming dynasty and the beginning of the Qing dynasty).

The spirit of “getting to the bottom of things” should have been the basis of education, yet our system deemed not catching up well on this. Learn-to-question and creative thinking skills have not been included in the curriculum and teaching handbook. That brought our understanding of wuxia novels and wuxia action movies confined to sensory stimulations. Not until getting into contact with xiqu’s wusheng playing out on stage, we started to feel their bodily presence, which is flesh and blood, and stripping off from any digital special effects, or no more than our own imagination between the lines in the novels. When these acrobatic movements merged with wusheng performers’ experiences on stage and in life that conjures up a richer and fuller narrative to share with the audience.

Hence, we started to question the origin of wusheng role type in xiqu. Equally, we have also questioned the origin of xiqu, the origin of theater structure, and how the social standing of theatre arts was defined? Out of the same interest, we are curious about xiqu and history, and attempted to de-construct the relationship between the two and their deeper relational meanings. These are the major subject matters in our process of understanding and learning. Indeed, we have kept pondering and reflecting on these areas of interest, such as wusheng performers’ vigorous training in their personal development, the cultural meanings of wusheng, the differences between wusheng and other performers, the relationship between theatre and movie, and how the practice of wusheng and the respective performers in real life be relevant in the present social construct. Through handin-hand learning process in this project, we tried to approach and to understand our positions.

Twenty years ago, the play title Meeting of Gods was used in one of my theater programs that was made to continue the creative dialogue with my another previously done theater play, Book of Ghosts. The original publication of Book of Ghosts, was written circa 1330 during the Yuan dynasty by Zhong SiCheng, in which performing artists was recorded as the lowest tier of society not much different from ghost which is invisible and omnipresent, threatening and unpredictable. I reacted to these attributes when working with other participated artists to enact the theatre play of the same title. Today, self-deprecatingly speaking, we upscaled ourselves from ghosts to gods in the current theater play in the making, Meeting of Gods: Death of Generals (Startup of Wusheng). That being said, are performing artists ghosts or gods nowadays, trick or treat, your call.

I always found the idea of gathering different artists to work in one project is not only about responding to the existing operation model of performing arts business; in fact, in the context of cross-regional and cross-culture collaboration, it generates more space and time to establish a platform which is interactive, balance and dialectic. When this goal is achieved, be it ghost or god, does not matter.

Running time approximately 80 minutes;

No latecomers will be admitted, until a suitable break in the performance;

Zuni Icosahedron reserves the right to add, withdraw or substitute artists and/ or vary advertised programmes and seating arrangements.