West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Programmes Highlight for Apr – Jun 2025

WestK FunFest 2025

As a major highlight of Hong Kong Art March 2025, the second edition of a family-focused festival, WestK FunFest, is being held from 21 Mar to 27 Apr 2025 at various WestK venues, bringing audiences a series of over 100 enchanting free and ticketed multimedia art programmes including a large-scale interactive installation, as well as a wide array of performances and interactive experiences from Hong Kong, Australia, Belgium, Canada, the UK, the US, and beyond.

The FunFest Market is also being held for the first time in the Art Park for six consecutive weekends from 21 Mar. During WestK FunFest, two dedicated sessions of Tea House Theatre Family Experience and Cantonese Opera Movement Workshop welcome family units of different ages and backgrounds to experience this traditional art form in an interactive way at the Xiqu Centre.

The events and activities are aimed at people of all ages and interests, ensuring an enjoyable and enriching experience for everyone, especially children, during the Easter holidays.

The 5th Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Chinese Theatre Cultural Festival – Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe 40th Anniversary Performances

The award-winning, all-female cast of the Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe return to Hong Kong with a special anniversary performance in Apr 2025. The much-anticipated triple-bill, featuring artistic direction by three-time Plum Blossom Award-winner Mao Weitao, a renowned Yue opera artist famed for playing male lead roles, comes to the Xiqu Centre stage.

The celebratory performance showcases three exciting works embracing comedy and romance: Lu You and Tang Wan led by Yue artists Mao Weitao and Chen Huiling, telling a heart wrenching story about poetry, love and regret; the troupe’s festive signature production Birthday Celebration by Five Daughters; and The New Butterfly Lovers, an inventive retelling of a beloved romantic folktale, featuring a special appearance of Mao Weitao in the second performance.

Each from a different era of the Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe, the three distinctive productions trace the troupe’s artistic evolution and pay homage to its 40-year legacy.

This production is part of the 5th Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Chinese Theatre Cultural Festival.

Image courtesy of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

In May 2025, an electrifying musical of love, heartbreak and self-reinvention, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, will be staged at WestK. First staged off-Broadway in 1998, John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s original Tony Award-winning musical has won rave reviews from audiences around the world.

Created and staged by a stellar team of Hong Kong musical theatre talent, the wickedly funny, gender-bending Hong Kong adaptation of Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a punk rock tale about being seen for who we are.

Abandoned and betrayed by a series of lovers, wry, gender-queer rock singer Hedwig will set out on a riotous tour of reinvention and revenge with her band The Angry Inch – dissecting love, loss and identity through music, drag, laughter and tears.

Image courtesy of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

Rachid Ouramdane, Compagnie de Chaillot: Corps extrêmes

 From 30 May – 1 Jun 2025, Rachid Ouramdane, Compagnie de Chaillot: Corps extrêmes will be presented in the Grand Theatre, Xiqu Centre. Director at Chaillot – Théâtre National de la Danse, Rachid Ouramdane’s Corps extrêmes (Extreme Bodies) explores the human desire for weightlessness through an exhilarating mix of dance, acrobatics and extreme sports. On stage, a community of extraordinary freedom lovers – a highliner, a climber, aerial artists and acrobats – weave a gravity-defying meditation on physical virtuosity and the peace and mental clarity derived from flirting with the void.

Intimate yet larger than life, the performance combines projections, spoken word and a musical score, revealing an existential human experience anchored in reality and suspended in the world of dreams.

Photo credit: Pascale Cholette

The Debut Mainland China Tour of The Impossible Trial – a musical and its Third Run in Hong Kong

The Impossible Trial – a musical, the first original Cantonese musical commissioned by WestK, co-presented and co-produced with Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, will officially debut in Mainland China in mid-June 2025. There will be ten performances at the Shanghai Culture Square starting 17 Jun 2025, followed by a stop in Beijing in July before returning to the Xiqu Centre in WestK for a third run in mid-August.

The musical has been selected as one of the Cultural Exchange projects to receive funding support from the China National Arts Fund 2025.

In preparation for the musical’s touring in the mainland and overseas, WestK and Hong Kong Repertory Theatre initiated an open casting call in April 2024 to recruit new cast members worldwide. A total of 18 new faces from Hong Kong and Mainland China will be joining the cast and making their debut during the mainland tour and the Hong Kong performances in 2025.

Image courtesy of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority

Stay tuned for more details coming soon on our website!

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