By Katie Tse
January 30, 2024
InnerGlow 2024 illuminates the beige-coloured walls of the Tai Kwun Barrack Block on 29 January, 2024. Photo: Katie Tse/Shroffed
Tai Kwun opens up its third InnerGlow event for the Year of the Dragon
Located in the heart of Central, Tai Kwun is home to two heritage galleries in the former Victoria prison. Its main goal; to inspire the community through arts, culture and heritage, playing a critical role in the city’s arts and culture development. Blending the animations with architecture, InnerGlow 2024 transforms Tai Kwun’s 160-year-old Barrack Block into a multicoloured spectacle.
Dragon Tales is at the centre of the InnerGlow exhibition which displays a 10-minute journey of a mythical dragon travelling across the central building. It utilises myth inspired illustrations with five different works, each contrasting in nature. The show opens with a hum of traditional Cantonese narrative singing by The Gong Strikes One and develops into a mix of contemporary music by Roy Cheung. It guides the audience through landscapes, ancient texts and urban spaces in the form of the dragon.
Ivan He, a 27-year-old mainland Chinese tourist, was awed by the vividness and music.
“You know that dragons are fictional but you really see [them] come to life. You think, wow, it is really there,” He said.
The show employs a blend of traditional and contemporary music. Video: Katie Tse/Shroffed
Pottinger Ramp also employs this multicoloured take on the Tai Hang fire dragon with a neon procession of blinking characters and flashing symbols enticing members of the public up the street. It presents the dragon’s journey up the street, twisting and winding through an ocean of traditional Chinese motifs.
Charles Lin and Tim Chang, both students visiting from Taiwan, said, “We just passed by and thought it was beautiful so we came up to watch”.
The lights on Pottinger Street up towards the main show. Photo: Katie Tse/Shroffed
The exhibition also brings together the young creative talents from Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the Hong Kong Design Institute and the City University of Hong Kong under the InnerGlow Searchlight mentorship program. Through partnership with Electric Canvas and Tai Kwun, they have the opportunity to showcase their ideas on a large scale through five shows to a public audience in the Prison Yard.
A traditional and contemporary mix
Whilst Chinese New Year traditions date back thousands of centuries, InnerGlow 2024 provides a contemporary twist, enticing young adults and art lovers to enjoy the celebration.
A worker behind the light show identifies “the demographic of the light show ranges from very young babies who are fascinated with the flashing lights to the older generation who pass by”, stating that “it really is a show for all ages”.
InnerGlow in collaboration with Electric Canvas pride themselves in blurring the lines between creative artists and technical geeks. It is clear that the show is taking on a new modern twist to the traditional Tai Hang dragon, Hong Kong’s intangible cultural heritage.
InnerGlow 2024 advertisement on Instagram. @heideexyz/Instagram
The fusion of traditional and contemporary practices extends to the means of advertisement. Promoted through social media and traditional banners along the mid-level escalators, it brings together a large demographic of people to watch the show. Tim Lau, a 54 year old man living in Central went to the show because “a colleague recommended me to come watch as it is very different from the traditional Chinese New Year parades”.
“It was not what I was expecting, it was a really clever use of technology, not along the traditional lines,” Lau said.
Students from the City University of Hong Kong both said that they saw the show advertised on an Instagram reel with 32,000 views and stated “I love how new the show is, it implements technology and it’s not along the traditional lines”. They would both recommend it to people their age, highlighting “it was quite refreshing, it is definitely engaging”. Similarly, He found the show through “comments on Xiao Hong Shu”, a social media and e-commerce platform.
People gather at the Parade Ground before the show on 29 January, 2024. Photo: Katie Tse/Shroffed
The show runs from January 26th until February 14th with the main event Dragon Tales being displayed every half hour from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. InnerGlow Searchlight shows by students are on display from 6:45 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. except on Jan. 10 and 11.
Reporting by Katie Tse
Editing by Justin Fung and Alvin Heung