East meets West in HK's Romeo + Juliet

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet has been reconsidered and reassembled countless times since it first appeared in print. Its story captures universal truths that transcend time and place, while each new adaptation reveals another facet of this complex play, according to Septime Webre, choreographer and artistic director of Hong Kong Ballet.

The ballet's Romeo + Juliet takes that enduring tale and gives it a distinctly local identity, transporting the lovers from Renaissance Verona to the turbulent, cosmopolitan world of 1960s Hong Kong.

On Aug 29 and 30, the production will be staged at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing and will also be performed in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Sept 11 and 12.

In this version, Juliet is the daughter of a tycoon from Shanghai, whose ambitions extend beyond family tradition: he is determined to marry her to a wealthy man in pursuit of greater social advancement. Taipo (Tybalt in the original) is a powerful gang leader from Hong Kong's Kowloon City, who is having an affair with Juliet's mother, a beautiful but cold woman trapped in a loveless marriage.

Against this tangled web of family loyalty, social ambition and forbidden desire, Romeo and Juliet unexpectedly discover the consuming power of love. Their decision to be together becomes an act of defiance, setting them against the people and structures that seek to control their futures.

For Webre, relocating the story is not simply a change of scenery. It is a way of asking how Shakespeare's themes might resonate within another society and another moment in history.

Webre is an internationally recognized ballet director, choreographer, educator and advocate. He joined Hong Kong Ballet as its artistic director in July 2017 after 17 years as artistic director of The Washington Ballet in Washington DC, the United States. Previously, he also served as artistic director of the American Repertory Ballet, based in Princeton, New Jersey, for six years.

"When I first moved to Hong Kong, I knew I wanted to create a ballet that fused Hong Kong and the West. It became a way for me to get to know the city better, to explore its culture and build a world with a distinctly Hong Kong style," he says. "Then Romeo + Juliet came along, and the story seemed to lend itself so naturally to that idea. Everything came together very quickly."

The production's Hong Kong identity is reinforced through its visual language. Webre and his creative team drew inspiration from the city's influential cinema from the 1960s through the 1990s, particularly the energetic street scenes and stylized action of Hong Kong films. The stage becomes a bustling, vividly imagined cityscape, filled with neon signs, bamboo scaffolding, noisy Chinese restaurants and crowded markets.