Hong Kong City Hall, Central｜Hong Kong Arts Festival and The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust co-presenting No Limits 2025: Be Seen by Zhao Hongcheng

Description

With or without disability, everyone needs to be seen

Celebrity content creator Zhao Hongcheng presents a groundbreaking, woman solo performance about the challenges of navigating everyday life and relationships as a female wheelchair user.

Alone in the spotlight, on the eve of a public speech, Zhao mulls over what to present to her audience. Recalling moments from her childhood, her working life, her medical treatments, intimate relationships and interactions with strangers – some positive, some humorous, some intensely vulnerable – she weighs up which version of herself is more authentic, and which she wants to share.

Alternately comic, heart-wrenching and eye-opening, Be Seen offers a frank glimpse into both the specific experiences of disabled women in mainland China and the universal issues faced by disabled communities everywhere. Drawing heavily on personal anecdotes from Zhao’s day-to-day life, the work is the creation of an all-female team: director Luo Xi, scriptwriter Chen Si’an and producer Mia Shen. The first domestic theatre production in mainland China to be told from the perspective of someone with a disability, Be Seen premiered in 2023 at the Shanghai Grand Theatre and Tianqiao Theatre Beijing to rave reviews in print and online, and was named Best Innovative Play at the 2023 Chinese Theatre Awards and the Annual Media Attention Award at the 2024 ONE Drama Awards.