“BOK Festival” (previously named as “Theatre Fightclub”) has reached its third year. Almost forgot when did I bring this up to friends, but I think three years is a very good amount of time for us to review what happened during this period. If there were no “Own Theatre”, there would never have been the embryo of “BOK Festival”, and I am thankful to all the theatre friends who have been with us. From “Fight with All You’ve Got” to “Performance Subculture”, from “Theatre Horizon” to “Macau Experimental Theatre”, from “classical” to “experimental”, it’s as if together we’ve gone through the development stages of a modern play.

“Installation Stage” – The double meanings of this theme refer to an installation where a performance is staged. As the title suggests, the acceptance of modern theatre towards the ever-changing nature of a work’s “theme” was already reflected in the mutual influence that Eastern and Western theatre have had on each other’s forms. Regarding the present, with the incorporation of dance in theatre form, the elements of theatre found in dance, the pursuit of blending technology and film with theatre and the presence of narrative text and images in experimental music, it becomes difficult to generalize with broad descriptions like “rich in poetic imagination” or “crossover multimedia”.
In 2015, regarding this “space”, it is no longer subordinate to the age of the individual and the collective, rather it is more in line with the conceptualization of people’s struggles with ideology and authority. “Installation Stage” implies some kind of performative characteristics. Add to that the performers’ participation and the collective result is quite detached from the old nature of theatre, it’s a unique artistic experience to modern art. With this in mind, we intentionally invited five independent artists from different cultural backgrounds, each with their own unique form and medium for artistic exploration, reflecting on and demonstrating the topics of their interests in concrete forms. Instead of starting from where they were specialized in, such as stage lighting, sound, video, performance and space design, they now must directly face the “Entirely - Empty -Space”, a performance space set as an installation.

Johnny Tam, Artistic Director

《劇場搏劇場》踏入第三年，不知哪次和朋友間談話說起，我覺得三年是一個很好的時距，梳理下這段時間我們在其中發生了什麼。沒有「自家劇場」這個空間，就不會有最初「劇搏」，感謝我身邊出現過的劇場伙伴。從「放手一搏」到「表演次文化」，從「天邊外」到「小城」，從「經典」到「實驗」，彷彿我們一起經歷了一次現代戲劇發展的進程。

「裝置現場」，這個主題的一體兩面是作為裝置的「表演」現場。就題目而言頗能說明，當代劇場對作品「主位」變動不定的存在所能展現的包容度，曾經這種美學潮流一度體現在東西方戲劇形式上互相借鑒。直面當下，戲劇手段的舞蹈化、舞蹈中的戲劇元素、劇場摻合科技及電影追求、實驗音樂中影像與文本的敍事等，已經很難簡單用而「富含詩意想像力」、或「跨界多媒體」去籠統說明。

2015年，面對這個「空間」－－已經不從屬個人及集體的時代，它更符合人們對權力和意識形態角力的想像。裝置現場隱含著某種性格化（characteristics）的表演性，再加上表演者參與其中的表演行為，共同譜就出一種有別於以往的劇場性特質，一種當代藝術特有的審美經驗。以此為題，我們特意邀請六位身處不同文化背景的獨立創作人，各自以其特有的形式及媒介進行藝術探索，對自身關注的命題以具體的形式進行思考及呈現。他們以往更多從燈光、聲音、錄像、行為、空間設計著手，而今次他們直接面對的是整個空－的－空－間，一個作為裝置的表演現場。


藝術總監    譚智泉