Tour workshop in Hong Kong: August 26 - September 03

I'll be returning to Hong Kong to lead a nine-day workshop on creating tours in late August  early September. This will be a great opportunity to work, with a concentrated group of participants, on making artistic and cultural tours from start to finish. I'll be joined by Yuen She Hung and Indy Lee in giving this course and at the end of it all of the participants will have created a tour of their very own. Hong Kong is already an exciting city but I'm really looking forward to seeing how I can help people tell different stories and show less familiar sides of the city. This can only make for a richer still experience of Hong Kong. The course will be given in English but details of it below are provided in Chinese.

成為文化旅遊創建者

你有興趣成為社區導賞員嗎?
嚮往把自己熟悉的社區，用獨一無二自己創建的方式與人分享嗎？
如何成為一個出色和獨一無二的文化旅遊導賞員?

工作坊簡介：

是次工作坊參與者將學習如何策劃首創的導賞徒步之旅。導師以嶄新的角度引發參與者，如何集中精力地設計屬於他們興趣與話題的獨特徒步旅程。運用旅程沿途的選定場景、位置，啟發他們研究城市空間及在地有趣的主題，並發揮個人創意，通過自己獨特和擅長的演繹方式作導賞分享，把故事及觀眾連結到眼前的空間。

參與者透過視覺、聽覺、感觀層面，以多角度尋找他們的徒步材料，並通過分組練習，建構自己的導賞元素。發展他們的旅遊導賞，成為日常生活的一部份，而不僅僅是資料的傳遞。

參加者能夠在工作坊，獲得建構文化旅遊的多角度嶄新想法。並且誘發他們的個人興趣，繼續進行對社區及文化的研究，以便發展更多新的旅程。持續地創建屬於自己的獨特旅遊路程和演繹方式。

學習成果：
1.培養觀察和研究能力，把個人風格轉化成獨特的文化旅遊旅程
2.了解戶外空間，學習如何運用在地空間，創造性地講述故事
3.掌握接收者的觀察和理解，並如何啟發參加者找尋平常事物箇中有趣之處
4.建立參加者在戶外表演，演講的信心和能力
5.教授完整地組織文化旅遊的內容及結構

對象：有興趣運用創意建構文化旅遊之人士、

           有意成為文化旅遊帶領者、

           對社區和創意藝術有興趣人士

地點：社區文化發展中心 / 碧波押 (上海街404號)  待定

Bill Aitchison 工作坊

日期: 2017年8月26日    (星期六)          早上10:00-下午5:00
         8月28日- 9月1日  (星期一至五)   晚上8:00-10:00
         9月 3日                 (星期日)          早上10:00-下午5:00

*早鳥* 註1    優惠費用: $2,200
                     正價費用: $2,500

課程重點：
運用創意及聯想力，創建獨特的徒步之旅
學習研究身處的城市和空間，展開獨有的話題
親身遊歷社區，尋找創意素材和靈感

目標及成果：
以嶄新的視覺、聽覺、多元化的角度探索城市

創建屬於自己獨有風格的文化旅遊地圖
建立戶外表演和演講的能力

雄仔叔叔工作坊

日期：2017年8月27日(星期日)
時間：早上10:00-下午5:00
費用：$700

課程重點：文化是幽靈，社區是異域，真實的人是載體。載體要自覺，才可跟幽靈握手，在異域覓路。自覺來自情感和想像，導賞就是讓人深思現實的另一百種可能。雄仔叔叔以獨特的工作坊形式和香港實踐經驗，豐富了Bill Aitchison工作坊的外國經驗。

李俊亮工作坊

日期：2017年9月2日(星期六)
時間：早上10:00-下午5:00
費用：$700

課程重點：行行重行行，停下來，看著路邊的風景。遊走社區與街道，觀看著人來人往的場面，一齣齣未經綵排而又活生生戲劇場境，活靈活現。李俊亮以他的獨特工作坊和香港實踐經驗，豐富了Bill Aitchison工作坊的外國經驗。

全程投入參與  Bill Aitchison X 雄仔叔叔 X 李俊亮   
*早鳥* 註1           優惠費用: $2,800
*會員* 註2           優惠費用: $3,100
*永久會員* 註3    優惠費用: $2,200
                            正價費用: $3,400

註1 : 於8月10日或之前報名可享早鳥優惠
註2 : 申請成為CCCD一年會員費用$100，並可於報名其他工作坊享有優惠
註3 : 申請成為CCCD永久會員費用$1000，並可於報名其他工作坊享有優惠

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創意藝術家導師:

Dr. Bill Aitchison
英國藝術家 【http://www.billaitchison.co.uk】，是個著名運用場地而構思和進行演出(Site Specific) 的表演者。 Bill曾經在世界各地，創造和策劃各種多元化的實驗性旅遊，使人重新想像城市，並如何敘述城市與我們之間的故事。他曾獲英國倫敦、Bath等地的旅遊局邀請，設計文化旅遊路線，及以Tour of All Tours讓人一口氣品嚐別具一格的導賞旅程。

阮志雄 Yuen Che Hung  (雄仔叔叔）
講古佬，也寫詩。70 年代社運青年，於 1994 年成立「慢慢走工作坊」，自始成為全職工匠，製作想像的真實。對象有小朋友、學校、社區中心。2012 年加入「四圍講古」，推廣講古文化。雄仔叔叔在深水埗在地的文化旅遊，以講故事模式出發。由現實到超現實，讓人進入深水埗深雋之旅。

李俊亮 Indy Lee*
劇場導演、演員、戲劇教育工作者。早年畢業於香港演藝學院戲劇學院，後獲英國Royal Central School of Speech and Drama 應用劇場碩士。過去參與不同劇團的創作及演出，亦為學校及機構策劃及推行藝術教育項目。現為香港演藝學院表演藝術教育主任，香港藝術發展局大會委員及戲劇組主席。生於香港，在深水埗長沙灣長大和學習，曾在十年內遷居到十個不同的地方。李俊亮的文化導賞充滿戲劇和表演，讓參加者共同參與。
*承蒙香港演藝學院批准參與

查詢：2891 8482  Stephanie

Way-Losing Brussels

The day before going on this Way-Losing Tour, I visited a friend in Molenbeek, the neighbourhood much in the news as a hotbed for jihad. It seemed perfectly OK to me, but I did hear from a friend living there that until recently it had seen a surge in terrorism tourism. Looking out from on high, I saw more of Brussels than I've seen before: towers, hills, houses and parks stretching out afar. I didn't realise that it would be amongst these very same buildings we'd be passing tomorrow. 

  

The starting point, this statue in Grassmarkt, the time, 2PM. The city-centre with it's convenient signposts and cultural centres soon slid away. We rang the bell of the The Magic Mountain but nobody was in. We walked on.

We cut a line northwards, a direction we were mostly unfamiliar with, and we seemed to fall on the right-hand side of the main train tracks. Whilst I don't really know the city, I know this train line only too well so it was important to move away from it. This meant steering a path around and away from the red light zone that seems to ooze along the side of the tracks of the north station. 

I had never previously realised just how hilly the city is. This can be both an asset when getting lost and also land you with bad surprises: you can happen upon a view that immediately locates you. These hills were at first a blessing and then later became something to avoid. Over time we gravitated to the valleys. To get lost, we had ourselves to become hidden.

Of all the Way-Losing tours so far, this was perhaps the most elegant. Where previously Way-Losers have often found ourselves drawn to the margins of the city, sites beyond the reach of designers and even the law, in Brussels we seemed to be accompanied by a steady stream of art deco buildings.

We all knew far more than we realised. We kept on stumbling across places we didn't know we knew, landmarks that prevented us from fully leaving behind the city and coming face to face with something other. 

For no more than fifteen minutes did we reach our precarious goal of being lost. That is when the discussion warmed up. We saw the police interviewing residents at the door, the stories of crime surfaced once again, but so too very particular details. Businesses that had fallen on hard times, unusual names, ambiguous signs pointing in all directions. Yet, even when lost there was a presence surrounding us that could not be wholly forgotten. Planes making their approach to the airport and hills upon which tall buildings threatened to reveal us at every corner.  

Finally it was the train line that brought us back to reality but it did so in a curious way: it led us to Magic Land. Once again we stumbled into theatre, once again the city was offering up a polished version of itself that was not quite real, but not for one instant did we break into the backstage of Brussels and discover the dressing rooms where the city's make up is painted upon it transforming street to stage. An elusive city, then, a city that has faces for all occasions, a city with a resisting embrace. 

The Subtle Allure of Getting Lost in Jimei

Here we are at the start of our Way-Losing tour of Jimei District, Xiamen. Previously, I have always been cast in the role of the visiting tour guide who tries to get the locals lost. This time round there were some other visitors too, and none of us could precisely say we were local to Southern China, though a couple of us knew their way around Jimei.

The tour was distinguished by torrential rain that fell in sheets shortly after we began. We jumped into the first bus we saw, then another, and this finally led us far from the centre to an area none of us had been to before. The rain abated long enough for us to go looking for a local 'Tire Museum' but drizzle started again and we took shelter around a table dominated by a Teletubbie. I was reminded of performance artist, Gary Stevens, who lent his voice to these creatures, as we sat drinking inexpensive beer in this makeshift bar. Seeing as some of the group had been looking for a bar all along, it worked out just fine.

One of the attractions of a Way-Losing Tour is that there is not too much pressure on having to be led to anything special. On the majority of more conventional tours, you expect to be lead to supposedly important sites and, more often than not, the locations are ever so slightly disappointing. They are rarely the guide's own personal choices, they simply comprise the city's canonical geography and the guide is there to explain it for you. With a Way-Losing Tour, however, places come and go like weather and it is up to you and your fellow way-losers to find significance in them. This puts the tourist in a more active position.

When looking at sites like this and creating your own narratives from them, you have to look a lot more closely than usual. With so many sites and threads in the air I started trying to make connections between them all. Imposing sense on experience is hard, but inevitable; looking for that sense in unfamiliar places was where the creative work lay for me. 

The Blue Mountains, some way off in the distance, was where my imagination kept drifting off to. They exerted a pervasive influence that transcended the muck, mire and petty affairs of the increasingly scrappy streets below. 

Earlier on in the afternoon we had been talking about the shared bike schemes and then we saw an Ofo bike far from the city, cutting its way through one of the many small lakes that the village had been engulfed in. Looking closely at the the village aesthetic I came to see how it was different to the city's but also how, in places, the village popped up in the city too. This got me thinking that to understand how the city works, and why it looks the way it does, it is essential to also understand the outlying villages like these, too. 

A field that marked the furthest point we would reach, and where Xiamen truly ended, provided the set for this domestic scene. There was a fair amount of creative work quietly going on in the background and this got me thinking that this could all be foregrounded in a creative Way-Losing Tour. This was a mixed group, however, with people here for different reaso so this was not going to be that sort of tour. 

Afterwards we ate food in the adjoining town. We got lucky and it turned out to be pretty good. 

It was not over. A bus took us back onto the island and into the city. Weaving our way back I realised that there must be many more buses like the one we took, connecting the villages to the city, something I had underestimated before. Spat out in Sibei, we stumbled into a rare demonstration: Xiamen University professors complaining about housing resale rights. Unable to get a bus or taxi back because they were clogging the road, I realised that on a Way-Losing Tour, problems do not have to be perceived as problems: they are opportunities to discover more about the place and people. This resistance, or will of the city, is one of the things that is expected, even necessary. The frame of the Way-Losing Tour transforms problems, well it has so far, and demands an interesting balance of being engaged but also accepting of just what fate has in store.