ONE DAY Festival

Last Saturday (July 12, 2014), I attended a mime show: YU Jin Gyu (Korea) x WONG Kwok Chung (Hong Kong) jointly presented by the Centre for Community Cultural Development, the Asian People’s Theatre Festival Society, the Mime Touch Theatre and Hong Kong Mime Festival Association, supported by UNIQUEPIECE.  I did not notice that the show was a programme of a festival, ONE DAY Festival, until the after show cocktail. 

ONE DAY Festival 2014 was presented by The House Concert at Seoul with the support of the Arts Council of Korea and it was the first time the Festival extended beyond Korea.  Expanding the project to Northeast Asia, 94 concerts in total were held throughout Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Japan simultaneously at 7pm in Korea and Japan (6pm in China and Hong Kong) on July 12, 2014.  The Festival was first held last year with 65 concerts, 294 artists, and about 10,000 audiences participated and the concerts were held at different places including culture and arts centres, private theatres, galleries, schools, hospitals, and military camps.  All performances were only one-hour in length. ONE DAY Festival 2014 was an extended version with about 500 theatre and music performance held in 94 different places.  

Nothing is impossible – a small-scale performance at home has built the foundation of this cross-national Festival.  ONE DAY Festival’s presenter, The House Concert was found by Chang Soo Park who is a musician and the Artistic Director of the Festival.  He has started small-scale concert at his house since July 12, 2002 and more than 400 performances has held since then.  As the first salon concert leading the house concert wave in Korea, the House Concert is credited for its demonstration of the possibility of small-scale concert hall and has been providing performance plans to concert halls nationwide under the title “Korean Concert Hall Raid” since 2012.

I had the privilege to talk to UNIQUEPIECE, one of the supporting organisations of the mime show and will invite them to share about the Korean arts scene and how Hong Kong artists and arts groups can join the ONE DAY Festival in our later issues.  Please stay tuned!

By: Winona, General Manager of Hong Kong Arts Administrators Association