Hong Kong’s Chinese Culture Festival 2025 Shines with Boundless Realm of Innovative Performances
Chinese Culture Festival 2025
The Hong Kong Chinese Culture Festival (CCF), leveraging on the tremendous success of its inaugural edition in 2024 with more than 900,000 participants, is into its second edition this year encompassing a wide spectrum of traditional and cross-disciplinary art forms that advocate inheritance, creative transformation and innovative development of traditional Chinese culture. Over 3,000 artists from 13 Chinese provinces, together with overseas artists and local talents are showcasing their works across the city in the four-month-long festival, offering over 280 programmes.
The festival strives to immerse audience in the boundless realm of Chinese culture, from the poetic and interactive world of music and dance maestros Tan Dun and Shen Wei to the majestic and intriguing operas of the ‘Three Kingdoms’ period.
Poetry and Painting Set into Motion
The CCF 2025’s grand opening on 13 Jun has featured director-cum-choreographer Shen Wei’s world-acclaimed dance performance Dongpo: Life in Poems, a presentation fantastically in congruence with the Festival’s ideal of ‘upholding traditions while embracing innovation’. Through a rich integration of dance, music, Chinese poetry and painting, Shen Wei has created a brand-new immersive experience that took audiences into a magical journey where ‘poetry embodies dance and dance incorporates poetry’.
For details, please visit: https://www.ccf.gov.hk/en/programme/dongpo-life-in-poems/?type=3
Literary Classics Crossing-over Dance and Drama
This year, programmes that reinterpret the classics while engaging the current generation are specifically selected, including dance dramas A Dream of Red Mansions and Azure After the Rain, and theatrical production Four Generations Under One Roof, all conceptualised based on Chinese literary classics or Chinese poetry with creative transformation. A Dream of Red Mansions revives one of the ‘Four Great Chinese Classics’ through contemporary perspective, while Azure After the Rain retells the tumultuous life of Song dynasty poetess Li Qingzhao. Four Generations Under One Roof re-adapts a world-renowned novel written by Lao She, a prominent literary master from the 20th century.
For details, please visit: https://www.ccf.gov.hk/en/programme-categories/dance/, https://www.ccf.gov.hk/en/programme/four-generations-under-one-roof/?type=77
Taisheng and Huayin Lao Qiang: Big Uncle, Second Uncle are All His Uncles Concert by Zhao Taisheng, Shaanxi Huayin Lao Qiang Troupe
Music and Tea Culture Revitalised Through New Visions
Taisheng and Huayin Lao Qiang: Big Uncle, Second Uncle are All His Uncles Concert is the fusion of the precious ancient Chinese music, Huayin Lao Qiang, and the sonorous modern music played by Zhao Taisheng and a pop music band. This programme will be performed by Shaanxi Huayin Lao Qiang Troupe and the representative inheritor of the genre Zhang Ximin with famous Hong Kong pop music producer Chiu Tsang-hei serving as the production’s music director.
To bridge culture and daily life, the Tea Culture series features stage performances, events and exhibitions extended to public libraries and museums, offering a multifaceted view on Chinese culture. World-renowned conductor-composer Tan Dun draws on tea culture and tea-making techniques and explores new possibilities of merging Daliuzi (traditional percussion music of western Hunan’s Tujia ethnic group) and tea culture in Tan Dun WE-Festival. Exhibitions organised by the Hong Kong Public Libraries highlight the origins of various teas and Hong Kong’s unique tea house culture, extrapolating the evolution and cultural impact of tea appreciation to all walks of life.
For details, please visit: https://www.ccf.gov.hk/en/tea-culture/
Artefacts and Performances from Ancient Xi’an
This year’s City in Focus extends to Xi’an, a capital of 13 ancient dynasties with profound cultural heritage. Over 130 sets of precious relics are displayed at the Museum of History under the title of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: The Great Unity – Civilisation of the Qin and Han Dynasties in Shaanxi Province. Another precious heritage performance originating from Xi’an is Qinqiang Opera, hailed as ‘China’s Oldest Rock ‘n’ Roll’, to be performed by the Xi’an Performing Art Group’s Youth Experimental Troupe of Qinqiang Opera.
For details, please visit: https://www.ccf.gov.hk/en/city-in-focus-xian/
Chinese Opera Festival 2025
Impressive ‘Three Kingdoms’ Operatic Masterpieces
As a core programme under CCF, the Chinese Opera Festival (COF) continues to bring in a wide spectrum of operatic attractions, ranging from Peking Opera, Cantonese Opera, Henan Yue Diao Opera, Yue Opera to Kunqu Opera.
As COF 2025’s opening programme, China National Peking Opera Company showcases their new historical epic Cession for Consolidation of the Song Regime. An impressive cast performs timeless episodes A Meeting of Heroes, Invoking the East Wind and The Huarong Pass, drawn from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the widely beloved classic The Legend of the White Snake.
In the local rim, renowned virtuoso Yuen Siu-fai is collating Hong Kong’s finest Cantonese Opera talents across three generations to showcase two operatic pieces related to the Three Kingdoms period. The wits and strategy of ancient historical figures will be enlivened through Northern and Southern xiqu art skills.
For details, please visit: https://www.ccf.gov.hk/en/programme-categories/chinese-opera/
As in previous year, Encountering Chinese Culture Carnival returns with more community attractions that include stage performance highlights, Library on Wheels, performances and booth activities under Vibrant ICH to engage the public in appreciation of Chinese culture.
Besides stage performances, the festival offers film screenings, exhibitions, talks, and a myriad of extension activities.
For details of the festival, please visit: www.ccf.gov.hk