The Rice Dough Craftsman
The 21st Macao City Fringe Festival, organised by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC, from the Portuguese acronym), will be held from 12 to 23 January. The opening ceremony will be held at 4:30pm on 12 January (Wednesday), at the Leisure Area in Rua Oito do Bairro Iao Hon and a free game zone will be available on site. The participatory exhibition “Art Exhibition for All” will also officially open at 12pm on the same day at the space next to Flower City Park, showing that everyone can be an artist and delivering artistic creativity all around the city.
Themed “Margin Break”, this edition of the Fringe Festival offers a series of programmes for the public to experience different aspects of art and to promote a bigger artistic interchange in the community. The immersive programme 0AR will have its Asian premiere at the Taipa Central Park, merging dance and Augmented Reality (AR) technology and allowing the audience to explore and interact through electronic devices. The Rice Dough Craftsman at Largo da Sé features a three-metre-high bamboo puppet depicting a craftsman who made and sold dough sculptures on a side street near Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro. Several artists will act as dough sculptures and interact with the audience during the designated periods of time. In the exhibition Room that Kid at Mong-Ha Villas, the creator Kawo Cheang will stage five artistic exercises to converse with his works, reflecting the importance of process and outcome, and leading the audience into his creative world. In Kids Dance Battle, 16 young dancers will present different dance styles, such as street dance. Latin dance and Chinese dance, in a competition at Largo de S. Domingos. All competitors will dance to music different from their dance style, injecting a unique dance art into the city. The multimedia art installation Finding Season by Cindy Ng will interpret ink art with new technology through digital media to create ink paintings, combining real-time weather data of Macao with ink art, and creating a virtual but realistic setting at Calçada de S. Francisco Xavier. Admission to the above programmes is free and the public is welcome to participate.
In addition to the opening ceremony held at the Leisure Area in Rua Oito do Bairro Iao Hon at 4:30pm on 12 January, a free game zone will also be open to the general public from 3:30pm to 5:30pm. All are welcome to visit and experience the festive atmosphere of the Fringe Festival, win exquisite souvenirs as well as enjoy this rich and diverse artistic journey. The Cultural Affairs Bureau will strictly follow the relevant guidelines of the Health Bureau and implement appropriate measures for cultural activities. All participants must wear their own face masks, undergo temperature checks, present a valid “Macao Health Code” of the day, maintain social distancing and co-operate with the relevant anti-epidemic and crowd control measures.
Tickets for the 21st Macao City Fringe Festival are available through the Macau Ticketing Network. 24-hour ticketing hotline: 2855 5555; online ticketing: www.macauticket.com. The public is advised to purchase tickets as soon as possible as tickets for some of the programmes are limited. In addition, online registration for outreach activities can be made at www.icm.gov.mo/eform/event. For phone registration and enquiries, please contact the IC through tel. no. 8399 6872 during office hours.
For more information about this year’s programmes, please visit the Fringe Festival’swebsite at www.macaucityfringe.gov.mo or the “Macao City Fringe Festival” page on Facebook.
