2009-09-03 Piccadilly Revisited

Free outdoor film and live music performance

Part of the Thames Festival
Saturday 12 September 2009
8.15pm - 10pm
East-facing facade of Royal Festival Hall

Piccadilly Revisited is a film and music performance inspired by the life and loves of Hollywood’s first Chinese film star, Anna May Wong, and the classic British silent movie Piccadilly (1929) in which she played a starring role.

Composers Suki Mok and Ruth Chan will perform their new contemporary score to the backdrop of an outdoor screening of the silent film, Piccadilly.

The score is based on a storyboard developed by co-writers Alice Lee and David Tse Ka-Shing.

Wong is the only Asian-American actress with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. She worked with Dietrich and Olivier, graced the pages of Vogue, Tatler and Vanity Fair, and the song These Foolish Things was written for her. She has experienced a renaissance in recent years, and Chinatown Arts Space is delighted to celebrate her achievements in
Piccadilly, her seminal film directed by E.A. Dupont.

The performance on 12th September is the first work-in-progress showing of a cross-artform production to be completed next year, which will incorporate dance, drama and video against a backdrop of the original silent movie.

The completed work will explore the contradictions of Anna May Wong’s life, the impact of the stereotyped ‘orientalist’ roles on offer, and liberate Anna May Wong’s spirit through the intervention of a team of British East Asian artists. Contemporary sensibilities will bring a fresh, vibrant interpretation to the film and her life. Like a Chinese ‘hungry ghost’ coming back to right a wrong, these modern mediums will exorcise her demons and satisfy all appetites.