The Macao Arts Festival returns to the city in May and, in what will be the 30th edition, the classics are celebrated. The opening performance is "Vertikal", a French co-production of the CNN Créteil & Val-de-Marne and Cie Käfig dance company, while the Cantonese opera "The Soul of Macao", adapted by playwright Li Xinhua, will close the festival. One of the international highlights is the contemporary dance show "Rain" by the Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, as well as the play "Karl Valentin Kabarett" by Portuguese company Teatro do Eléctrico. The 30th edition of the festival, which has a budget of 24 million patacas and lasts for a month, also includes family shows, concerts, workshops, masterclasses and sessions to meet the artists.
The hip hop show "Vertikal" will kickoff the 30th edition of the Macao Arts Festival, on May 3, at the Cultural Center of Macau (CCM). The co-production of French company CNN Créteil & Val-de-Marne and Cie Käfig "explores how to present hip hop vertically, dance on the ground, freeing itself from the limits of gravity to generate choreographic elements and produce unique and contemporary sequences," wrote Hong Kong art critic, William Chan. This is one of the international highlights of the event, as is the contemporary dance show "Rain" by Belgian company Rosas. From the choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, winner of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Dance at the Venice Biennale, "Rain" was first performed in 2001 and has as backgound Steve Reich's concert "Music for 18 Musicians".
Another of the international shows highlighted by the festival organization is the play "Karl Valentin Kabarett", by Portuguese company "Teatro do Eléctrico". Constructed from various short pieces by Karl Valentin, considered the "Charlie Chaplin of Germany", the show also includes early 20th-century German folk songs sung live in German by 11 actors and a lyrical singer accompanied by an orchestra of ten musicians, reads the festival program. Another featured piece of theater is "Odyssey – A Wandering Journey Based on Homer" by the German company Thalia Theater. Staged by Antú Romero Nunes, the show tells how the children of Ulysses, the central character of Homer's epic "Odyssey", Telemachus and Telégono met and joined the adventures of their father.
