A curtain of curved metal tubes over a theatre built for a 700-year-old art form that Hong Kong nearly let go.
Xiqu is the general Chinese term for traditional sung theatre — of which there are hundreds of regional forms, of which Cantonese opera is the one native to Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta.
UNESCO listed it as intangible cultural heritage in 2009.
The art form
Cantonese opera combines singing, stylised speech, mime, acrobatics and martial arts, with elaborate costume and painted-face makeup. Roles are typed — sheng (male lead), dan (female), jing (painted face), chou (comic) — and the conventions are dense: a whip means a horse, a circuit of the stage means a journey, colour indicates character.
Performances traditionally ran for hours in bamboo theatres built for temple festivals, and still do in the New Territories at the Tin Hau Festival and Yu Lan — those bamboo structures go up and come down in days and are worth seeing if the timing works.
The art form declined sharply from the 1970s as film and television took its audience, and the median age of the audience rose. Its status now is better than it was, partly because of this building.
The Xiqu Centre
Opened in January 2019, the first major venue completed in the West Kowloon Cultural District, designed by Bing Thom Architects with Ronald Lu.
The façade is a curtain of curved aluminium tubes suggesting a stage curtain parting, with a large open atrium at ground level that is genuinely public — people cut through it, and there is free performance in it.
The Grand Theatre is lifted to the fourth floor and suspended so that it is isolated from the vibration of the MTR tunnels beneath, which run directly under the site.
Going
The Tea House Theatre is the entry point: a 200-seat venue with tables, tea and dim sum, running around 90 minutes with English surtitles and an introduction explaining the conventions before the performance. It is inexpensive, it is on several times a week, and it is genuinely the best way in.
The Grand Theatre runs full-length productions by professional troupes, mostly in Cantonese with surtitles.
There are also workshops, makeup demonstrations and a seminar hall.
Elsewhere
Sunbeam Theatre in North Point is the traditional commercial opera house and has been under repeated threat of closure.
Yau Ma Tei Theatre, a restored 1930 cinema, is a venue for emerging performers.
Temple Street at night sometimes has street singers performing Cantonese opera excerpts near the Tin Hau temple, informally and for tips.
Practicalities
Ticketed; the Tea House performances are modest and sell out.
Austin MTR exit F is two minutes away; Kowloon station is five.
The atrium and the ground floor are free and open daily.
