Academy Drama: Songs of Innocence and ExperienceThe Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts
HKD 50 (Full-Time Student with valid I.D. / Senior Citizen aged 65+ / Disabled)
In a world losing its innocence, what does it mean to grow up?
University students are caught between innocence and experience; between respecting conventions and rejecting the old in favour of the new.
Songs of Innocence and Experience was created by this group of young people, reflecting on their personal experiences growing up. Their intertextual work exists in relation to John Milton’s Paradise Lost; much in the same way as William Blake’s collection of illustrated poetry, Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
John Milton wrote Paradise Lost after the English Civil War, describing how a group of fallen angels lost the war in heaven, and mankind fell by eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge. This great and controversial work inspired countless later works. Can Milton’s story, along with our own experiences and reflections on growing up, help us to find a way to face ourselves, the present, and the future?