19-11-2013 The Works

From February to May this year, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City featured the exhibition "No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia".
Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, and includes -- say the organisers - some of the most compelling and innovative voices in South and Southeast Asia today. And for the next few months you can see it at the Asia Society's Hong Kong Branch.
Over the summer, the Cat Street Gallery featured the first Hong Kong exhibition of Australian artist Emma Hack. Emma's works are photographs. But they are also, in an unusual way, paintings in which human beings are present but almost invisible. Music lovers may know her work from her collaboration with Gotye on his music video for "Somebody that I used to know". The exhibition at the Cat Street Gallery is over now, but Emma's works can still be viewed at the Cat Street Gallery Annex in Aberdeen.
"Antigone" is the story of a woman whose two brothers, on opposite sides in the civil war, die in battle. Creon, now the ruler of Thebes, rules that one of them Eteocles, who fought for him, will be honoured. The other, Polynices, who fought on the opposite side, will not be sanctified, and will lie on the battlefield to rot. Antigone defies this law and buries her brother, for which she is bricked up behind a wall where she hangs herself. Sophocles wrote the tragedy more than 2000 years ago, but it still has meaning today. As part of the People's Fringe Festival, one local theatre group decided to perform it in the open air in tthe North East New Territories.
Australian Trevor Ashley has been performing cabaret professionally since taking part in the Sydney Cabaret Convention in 1998. His performance there wowed the critics and led to several long-running shows. Trevor is in Hong Kong this week to perform.He's also in our studio, talking to Ben Pelletier about his new show "Starstruck" ... with a little help from none other than the legendary Dame Shirley Bassey