Works (selected) by Pat To YAN
THEATRES, FILMS, SCRIPTS & WORKSHOPS
A Poem
in Jail
7 - 16 MAY, 2021
TAI KWUN, Hong Kong
In Cantonese
Playwright and Director: Yan Pat To
Performers: Cecilia Chan, Ng Fung Ming, Sze Wei, Venus Cheung, Leung Tin Chak, Leung Ho Pong
Project Curator: Felix Chan
Dramaturg: Jass Leung
Media Installation: Kingsley Ng
Lyric Artist: Chow Yiu Fai
I’m not waiting for you.
In prison, time is at once transitory and eternal….resurfacing as memories for the future. In the 1980s, two women were imprisoned in Victoria Prison, where they experienced an unexpected romance in confinement. Their growing affections for each other were interrupted as one was released while the other wrote a love poem of longing on her bed board. When released from prison, she discovered that her lover had already married. She suppressed her mishmash of feelings and started a family as well. Approaching 1997, she did not want to live in a bigger prison. The decision to immigrate prompted a final rendezvous and conversation in which deep feelings were cast aside but never forgotten. Inspired by a bed board with a love poem found in a women’s prison, this groundbreaking immersive production features artists across disciplines, including Pat To Yan (theatre), Kingsley Ng (media installation), Adrian Yeung (video artist), Jass Leung (dramaturg) and Chow Yiu Fai (lyric artist). The immersive theatre will be remade in Tai Kwun, as lyrics, sounds, images and theatrical performances are interwoven, leading the audience to tread a path that explores Central then and now.
*Concept of the show title by〈黑房〉, Chow Yiu Fai
Happily Ever After Nuclear Explosion (Hong Kong & Korea)
12-14 JULY 2019,
JC CUBE, TAI KWUN, Hong Kong
In Cantonese, with English Surtitle
3-4 NOV 2019,
International Playwrights Festival, Korea
In Cantonese, with English Surtitle
Playwright & Director: Pat To YAN
Curator: Felix Chan
Dramaturg: Dick Wong
Video Director: Chiu Chih Hua
Performer: Kenneth Sze, Zhao Yi Yi
Two people from the nuclear explosion affected area. She speaks, he can’t. He once witnessed a person being choked to death by the broken pieces of his organs; then he often has the feeling to be choked. They come here to introduce another face of post nuclear explosion. In there, the nature grows freely, flowers blossom. Green is the warmest colour. Animals lead their lives happily. But they can’t use conditioners and lotions in order not to be contaminated by radioactivity elements. Apart from these, nothing is not fine for living there.
GOLDFISH
of BERLIN
10-12 May 2019,
Auditorium, Kwai Tsing Theatre, Hong Kong
In Cantonese & Mandarine, no subtitle
Playwright & Director: Pat To YAN
Curator: Felix Chan
Performer: Leung Tin Chak, Ceci Chan, Gigi Cheung
Movement coordinator: Kenneth Sze
In an age of liquidity, how can a person manage his love/life?
Sze Yin, a middle aged Hong Konger, specialises in creative technology. Once he met Lin lin in Berlin. Lin lin, aged 20 something, was born in Xi’an. They quickly fell in love with each other, but Sze Yin could only keep a long distance relationship with her as he had to be back to Hong Kong……
After three months, Yat Sum, at the same age with Sze Yin, suddenly kept seeing him. They studied in the same secondary school; and when Sze Yin was 25, Yat Sum saved his life, to a certain extent. But Yat Sum was married, had a son aged 5 …….
It’s a love story and not yet only a love story, as always. It’s still a story about city, life and time.
photo by Yu
Happily ever after nuclear explosion
24 JUNE 2018, Residenztheater München, Munich, Germany
Playwright: Pat To YAN
Director: Mira Stadler
Two people from the nuclear explosion affected area. She speaks, he can’t. He once witnessed a person being choked to death by the broken pieces of his organs; then he often has the feeling to be choked. They come here to introduce another face of post nuclear explosion. In there, the nature grows freely, flowers blossom. Green is the warmest colour. Animals lead their lives happily. But they can’t use conditioners and lotions in order not to be contaminated by radioactivity elements. Apart from these, nothing is not fine for living there.
photo by Konrad Fersterer
stream
of consciousness
Fringe Club, Hong Kong
27-30 APRIL 2018
Playwright, Concept & Director: Pat To YAN
Concept & Director: Rico WU
Pat To Yan's first Immersive Theatre series in Hong Kong.
photo by YC Kwan
How to present the love life of Hong Kong people to Aliens?
N2, Cattle depot, Hong Kong, 8-11 FEB 2018
Tai Kwun, Hong Kong, 16 MAY 2018
Quanta Hall, Taipei, 28 NOV 2019
Online Livestreaming performnce 12 APR & 1 MAY 2020
Playwright & Director: Pat To YAN
''Those people, that crowd of people, moving to different directions, like cells. They, like us, if only living in a giant body, then the pain I am used to is only temporary, not worth mentioning. I feel this after having been to a bookstore in Tsim Sha Tsui. At that moment, I just stared at the crowd who was looking at the Christmas decorations." One day, she suddenly said to me. Before that, she stared at me for ten seconds. I am just wondering what kind of spirit is living in this girl's body?
After his completion of three epic works: 'A concise history of future', Yan Pat-to returns to explore the most intimate and yet painful part of himself. One's memory is inseparable to the city. We can't tell our story without city.
photo by felixism creation
a Concise
History
of future
china
City Hall, Hong Kong, Nov 2016
New Vision Festival 2016 NOV 2016 Hong Kong
Playwright & Director: Pat To YAN
Curator : FELIXISM CREATION & Reframe Theatre
The first ethnic Chinese play selected by
Berliner Festspiele Theatertreffen Stückemarkt 2016
'Resist any linear narrative dramaturgy, using highly concentrated poetical interweaving to elaborate the cruel phantasms of a contemporary society of asynchronies.'
-- Kathrin Roggla (Jury member of Berliner Festspiele Theatertreffen Stuckemarkt)