Sunshower 晴雨

Sunshower, 2022

at Shouson Theatre and outside the theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre

Concept and Creation: Tang Kwok Hin

Director: Chow Wai Chuen

Dramaturg: Donald Chung Siu Hei

Assistant Director: Chan Pui Lam

Photo Courtesy of Hong Kong Arts Centre

In this project, Tang Kwok-hin creates a performance-installation that explores the delicate and often unspoken encounters between people, particularly during difficult and uncertain times. Conceived by Tang and directed by Chow Wai Chuen, the work was premiered at the Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre, as well as the space outside the theatre. 

Using the metaphor of a sunshower — rain falling while the sun continues to shine — the piece captures the emotional contradictions of coexistence: warmth and melancholy, hope and unease, connection and isolation. Through carefully choreographed movements, gestures, body language, and minimal dialogue, the performers portray wanderers in a public space who navigate invisible rules and silent tensions. The work experiments with unspoken languages — sign language, physical acts, subtle interactions, and spatial relationships — to reveal the complex, often wordless ways people connect, avoid, or understand one another in times of collective hardship.

Sunshower reflects on human resilience and vulnerability in turbulent eras. By focusing on non-verbal communication and quiet encounters, the artist invites audiences to contemplate the fragility and beauty of human connection when words become insufficient. The work stands as a meditation on empathy, distance, and the shared emotional landscape of contemporary Hong Kong.

Wanderers in the piazza move according to hidden rules, just like the private collections tucked away in an overfilled locker.

Are those with shoes on and those with shoes off part of the same gang, or different ones.

Are they on the street, or inside a room.

On and off stage, inside and outside the theatre—who, then, is the actor.

Memory, fantasy, and reality—no wall can truly separate them.

This is a shared moment in time: bodies, spaces, and objects under the spotlight, filled with sound, though only a few people speak.

Don’t rush. The sun still shines on the sensitive ones.

The edge of sunlight shifts slowly. Some perform in the light; others observe from the dark.

Is the universe as ruthless as the street—silent and suffocating.

Fireworks and rescue, devastation and vitality.

In the past, people climbed to the mountaintop to escape disaster; now we move upward to aim higher.

We know the scenery changes with altitude.

Voices grow farther and deeper the higher we go—yet a fall from such height is lethal.

Here on the battleground, overwhelmed by debates and controversies, those who choose to remain human linger, absorbed in the game of desire, and of life and death.

No space can restrict the production of meaning; no chain can constrain the soul’s gaze.

We know—many have long known—that every exchanged glance speaks a thousand words.

廣場裡浪藉中隱含秩序，猶如填滿的儲物箱內安放的私人珍藏。

穿上鞋子跟脫掉鞋子的是兩伙還是同一伙人？

這裡是街頭，還是個房間？

舞台上下，劇場內外，誰更入戲？

記憶、幻想和現實，已經沒有一堵牆能夠徹底阻隔。

這個共渡的時間，形體、空間和物件得以強調，充斥聲音卻沒多少言語。

急不來的，太陽依樣環繞一些東西在跑照耀多情的人們。

日光的邊緣線逐漸推移。有人在光下展演；有人在暗處觀察。

宇宙和街道是無情的嗎？同樣是靜默無聲和使人窒息嗎？

煙火和救援處處一併收進眼簾，滿目瘡痍又生機勃勃。

我們在城市裡起床卻夢見森林和麋鹿。

古有登高避禍；今有登高騖遠。

我們知道在高低處可看見不同的風景。

也許高點的地方可聽見更遠更深邃的聲音，不小心絆倒卻輕易掉命。

低處煙火氣重爭論不斷，但甘於或不經意為人的從來繾綣在此，迷失或逍遙於七情六慾，生老病死。

沒有一個空間可絕對局限意義的產生；沒有一種枷鎖能真正拘束靈魂的風景。

我們知道許多人已經明白，每一次四目交投，都是千言萬語的。