West Kowloon’s Performing Arts Artistic Director Alison M Friedman delivers closing address at this year’s Association of Asia Pacific Performing Arts Centres annual conference

The West Kowloon Cultural District showcased strongly at this year’s Association of Asia Pacific Performing Arts Centres annual conference, held for 2018 in Auckland, New Zealand. As well as featuring the Cultural District in a panel discussing the key role of Performing Arts Centres in cultural hubs, the District also had an opportunity to share details about “ON VIEW: Panorama”, one of its upcoming collaborative projects in the Asia Pacific region. Finally, West Kowloon was honoured to have its Performing Arts Artistic Director, Alison M Friedman, invited to deliver the closing keynote address. Alison’s wide ranging speech paid special attention to the power the performing arts can have in bringing communities together to address major global issues by having the “hard conversations” about our world, and also find the joy and fun to share too. The speech ended with a reflection on empathy and how the performing arts can help us see the familiar from a new perspective, or recognize something familiar in the “other.”
 

The Association of Asia Pacific Performing Arts Centres brings together leading industry figures representing 46 centres from across the region as well as related producers, promoters, festival programmers and other business partners.  It provides a vital platform for co-operation and exchange in what is proving to be an increasingly important region within global creative culture and one that is more and more determined to seek out ways to develop work within the region rather than import it from elsewhere.
 

The full transcript of Alison M Friedman’s speech can be downloaded below.