West Kowloon Cultural District The Room, Freespace WestK｜WestK Solo Fest: Melissa Leung – Body As Archive: Drifting and Michelle Li – Karaoke

Description

Two solo performances tracing the paths of memory in unique ways

In this double bill of two solo works, Hong Kong artists Melissa Leung and Michelle Li explore personal and collective memories through the body and voice.

Melissa Leung – Body As Archive: Drifting

“The memories held within our bodies retain sensations that are deeply connected to the textures of daily life, to physical spaces and to our emotions.” — Melissa Leung

In her new solo work, performing artist Melissa Leung uses movement and the narration of personal and collected stories to explore how memories and emotions reside within the physical body. Tracing the path of her life from her first home in a soon-to-be-demolished squatter house in Ngau Chi Wan, through years spent overseas, she tells the tale of wanderers everywhere.

Body As Archive: Drifting is the culmination of Leung’s year-long project Body As Archive – a study on how the body perceives and stores memory, conducted through field research and the cataloguing and sharing of collected texts, photographs and videos.

The performance was created in partnership with Leung’s long-time collaborator, cross-disciplinary artist Chan Kwun-fee.

Co-creator and Performer: Melissa Leung Hiu-tuen

Co-creator, Director and Scenographer: Chan Kwun-fee

Scenographer and Costume Design: Tiffany Lau Tsz-yan

Sound Design: AK Kan Hei-chun

Michelle Li – Karaoke

“When I was young, my mum would take me to karaoke almost every weekend. We used to sing until the last train home.” — Michelle Li

Interdisciplinary artist Michelle Li, co-artistic director of Hong Kong theatre company Rooftop Productions, takes childhood memories as the starting point for her new solo work Karaoke.

Weaving together family anecdotes, stories from public archives, personal recollections and popular songs, she takes the audience on a nostalgic search for home and identity. Through a poignant medley of humorous tales, Canto pop hits, Cantonese opera classics and English folk tunes, we experience the transformation of a city through the decades, and the intricate ties between the personal, the familial, culture and identity.

Concept, Co-creator and Performer: Michelle Li

Director and Co-creator: Ivor Houlker

*Join Melissa Leung and Michelle Li for a post-performance talk following Karaoke on 8 January 2026 (Thursday).

Performed in Cantonese with Chinese and English surtitles