Edfringe23: A Funeral for My Friend who is Still Alive House Program

2023.08.04-12

THESPACE @ NIDDRY ST - STUDIO

A F U N E R A L

F O R M Y F R I E N D W H O I S S T I L L A L I V E

EDINBURGH FESTIVALFRINGE2023

MAIN PRODUCTION TEAM

CATHY SK LAM

DIRECTOR/ CO-WRITER/ PRODUCER

KASEN TSUI

COELACANTH

MIMI LO

WONG TING PONG

HUNG CHUNG KIT KENSA

JEFF CHENG

JOYCE WONG

JOEY KWOK

PERFORMER/ CO-WRITER

COMPOSER

CHOREOGRAPHER

MOVEMENT COACH

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

PHOTOGRAPHER (POSTER)

MAKE-UP ARTIST

PHOTOGRAPHER

(PERFORMANCE)

THE BALLAD

LAST NIGHT ON THE FERRY BY JOHN LEE

ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY CATHY SK LAM

WHEN I CROSS THE LONESOME RIVER, I ENCOUNTER THE WINDS OF WINTER; THE SEA IS WAVING, THE RIVER BANKS OF THE CITY STARING AT EACH OTHER.

DANCE ALONGSIDE THE NEON LIGHTS, TOO NUMB TO REMEMBER THE ALCOHOL INSIDE MY BODY. I HAVE COME TOO FAR TO LOOK BACK, I REALIZE I WAS NOT ABLE TO HOLD ONTO ANYTHING.

ON THE FERRY, I REMEMBER YOU SAID LIFE IS LIKE WARRIOR, WHO WEARS THE SOBERNESS ARMOR AND RESTART EVERY TIME WHEN FAILED.

WHAT IS PRIDE AND PASSION? WHY DON’T WE JUST DRINK,FALL AND LAUGH, REPEAT. AT THE END OF THIS NIGHT, I SEE THE LIGHT OF DAWN, HOW ABOUT WE FINALLY WAKE UP AND START OVER?

CATHY & KASEN

MENTEE & MENTOR, FRIENDS THAT BOTH CARE ABOUT HUMANITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.

KASEN IS A FORMER JOURNALIST, NOW A DANCER, THEATRE PRACTITIONER, STORYTELLER AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR OBSERVER.

CATHY IS THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF KAIROS ARTS DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LIMITED AND LET’S BE TOGETHER ARTS FESTIVAL, AND FOUNDER OF THREEWOODS PLAYWRIGHT. CATHY HAS PRODUCED NUMEROUS ACCLAIMED PRODUCTIONS INCLUDING WITHER ON THE VINE AND SMOKING WITH GRANDMA; KASEN PERFORMED IN BOTH.

THIS IS THEIR FIRST TIME CO-WRITING TOGETHER.

CATHY SK LAM

DIRECTOR, CO-WRITER, PRODUCER

Pastor, art curator and theater practitioner.

She is the artistic director of Kairos Arts Development Company Limited; Hong Kong Ideation Arts Festival and Let’s Be Together Arts Festival.

Founder of ThreeWoods Playwright and Hong Kong on Screen Film Festival. She has directed, written and produced numerous critically acclaimed productions including Wither on the Vine, Smoking with Grandma and The Immigration Lottery. Her works have been produced in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. She now resides in Los Angeles, California.

KASEN TSUI

PERFORMER, CO-WRITER

Kasen Tsui majored in Journalism and Communication. Formerly a journalist, she is now an independent artist and creative movement instructor. She keeps on sharing and telling stories about Hong Kong by using words and body.

With a passion for the performing arts, she further studied at the Professional Physical Theatre Youth Training Programme by the Tang Shu-Wing Theatre Studio, and graduated with the Best Performance Scholarship in 2021. She also completed the Certificate Course in Theatre offered by the Theatre Horizon. Under dancing artist Mimi Lo’s supervision, she now specializes in contact improvisation as well. She was one of the Community Cultural Ambassadors to promote CI in Hong Kong for two years.

She has actively participated in a wide variety of productions, as actress, dancer, story author, observer, etc. For instance, she performed in Théâtre Sans Animaux, hosted by the French May Arts Festival. In addition, she has collaborated with different Hong Kong theatre companies, including On & On Theatre Workshop, Nobodies Theatre, Passoverdance, Star & Dust Collective, Five Senses Education Theatre and ThreeWoods Playwright.

COELACANTH

COMPOSER

Coelacanth is a street ethnic instruments /world music trio which performs with Didgeridoo, Mouth harp and Handpan etc.

Coelacanth was formed by Felix Lok and Victor Lam in 2015. As a friend Travis Hung joined, Coelacanth have become a trio since 2020. The group began making music from busking in the streets, and started to participate in different theater plays, workshops, sharing and art jamming, etc. Coelacanth has built up interactive and improvised performing styles throughout the years. Continuing to discover new possibilities of sound and music, through learning from primitive musical instruments and their wisdoms.

MIMI LO

@ MIMILOPADF

CHOREOGRAPHER

Mimi Lo @ MimiLOPADF (Mimi Lo Performing Arts Development Foundation) teaches contact improvisation at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She is a graduate of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts modern dance program, majoring in choreography and dance directing. Mimi followed Nancy Stark Smith in 2016 and 2018 to practice CI at EarthDance in the US and undertook the Long Dance Research project at The Dragon's Egg Studio, also in the US. She completed her DanceAbility® teacher training in Helsinki, Finland, and her ContaKids teacher training in Arezzo, Italy. Her current focuses are on contact improvisation and somatic dance and movement.

WONG TING PONG

MICHAEL

MOVEMENT COACH

Wong Ting Pong (Michael) is a graduate of the American Floral Art School with a Professor's Diploma. He performed an original piece, 24hr Restricted Area, and won a Golden Medal Award for Best Mime at 42nd International Festival of Monodrama and Mime (2017) in Serbia. In the same year, Michael joined the Peta Lily production The Death of Fun.

He is a puppeteer in the show The Trip which is performing in Camp Bestival (2023 UK) and International Puppet Fringe Festival (2023 New York). And Michael was a devising mime performer in Cao Fei's film Prison Architect.

Michael directs Place Me Softly on the Horizon which was invited to International Solo Theatre Festival (2018 Kathmandu) . Michael also directed the solo In Search of Last Name which was performed in Taipei Fringe Festival 2019.

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Kensa is a multifaceted artist experienced a variety of media. His works including drawings, paintings, sculptures, and manga. He has been drawing from an early age, and, with a fascination with mother nature, his creations were often influenced by living creatures and illustrated guides (botanical and zoological). He later developed an interest in Chinese calligraphy; after years of practice, he began incorporating the eastern aesthetic into his artworks. Alongside his artistic career, Kensa has been a designer, illustrator, teacher, art director and beekeeper.

Kensa has participated in a number of exhibitions in Hong Kong and mainland China as well as overseas.

H U N G C H U N G K I T K E N S A

PHOTOGRAPHER (POSTER)

Jeff Cheng obtained his bachelor's degree from the School of Communication of Hong Kong Baptist University and later graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. After years of recognition in worldwide photography competitions, Cheng is now experimenting with other forms apart from documentary photography. In his yearslong devotion in photojournalism, he has discovered that the bodily experience gained from the scene is often forgotten while capturing the symbols. In an effort to complete his own visual sentences, Cheng is currently observing the nature of the object itself.

MAKE-UP ARTIST

Joyce Wong is a make-up artist based in Hong Kong. Joyce dreamt of making films and discovered her passion for makeup artistry while studying film art in university; she continued her make-up career after graduated. From weddings to corporate events, and from stage performance to film and television, Joyce works intensively with every field in the art of make-up. Now her bigger dream is to make world-class Hong Kong film with pals, by brush and pen.

JOEY KWOK

(PERFORMANCE)

A photographer from Hong Kong

PHOTOGRAPHER