Tisa Ho, Hong Kong Performing Arts Expo: "Culture is from heart to heart"

At SIPAM 2026, Dr. Tisa Ho, member of the International Advisory Panel of the Hong Kong Performing Arts Expo and former Executive Director of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, reflected on the role of major international festivals today, on cultural exchange between Europe and Asia, and on why the performing arts remain rooted in humanity, even as the world around them changes.

It is a big question. It is a complicated question. Oh my goodness. It is humanity, I think. It is the whole range of humanity: the joy, the sadness, the terror, the exhilaration. All of this feeds who we are and how we can be.

Diplomacy is different from culture, I think. Diplomacy, I have received this definition, is persuading the other person that they want to do what you want them to do, even if they do not, right? That is diplomacy. Culture is more fundamental and more from the heart to the heart, and less from the head, less manipulating, less consciously making something happen. It is really from the heart to the heart.

I think they are exciting but also a little bit frightening, because we do not know what the world will be and whether they can be sustained. Everywhere I hear colleagues have different worries, different specific worries, but they are generally very much the same, which is to do with funding, audiences, the world at large, conflicts, the environment, all of those things that festivals have, in a way, taken for granted. We assume this is the world we know, and within this world we make a festival. Now this world is changing like crazy, including AI, including the way human beings relate to each other. All of these things are changing around us. It is like you are in a storm and you are trying to steer this little ship that you know is very good in rivers and very good even in oceans, but in this storm, you are trying to steer it.

I think it really depends on the festival. Some are extremely expensive, and it is a tough thing to go to those festivals for ordinary people. Others are very accessible, like this one, like in Sibiu, where there is lots of stuff that is free. What worries me sometimes is the separation of the expensive things, where you have to buy a high-priced ticket, and the free things, which are very different in nature. So the people who can only access the free things have a very different view of what this is, and I think it is really important that access be widened. The other area of access is people with physical difficulties, people who are older. I am getting older, so I cannot run to things as much.

And so I think festivals, in order to serve their public, need to embrace as widely as possible and make it possible for everybody to come and to participate on an equal basis. Not in the sense that here is something that is really high value, high quality, high price, and here is something that is free. It cannot be like that.

Not necessarily quality, but in a way, the nature of the beast. Some things just cost more to put together and some things cost less. So the thing that is free may not be of lower quality, but it will be lower cost in terms of how you put it together, the materials that go into it, the talent that goes into it. And I do not deny for a moment that people who have trained all their lives to do something should have a salary. An orchestra will always cost more than the street dancer, right? I mean, the skill may be at the same level, but just the whole machinery of putting it together, the number of people involved, something needs to be adjusted.

I think, in a way, they have to be. I am worried when people talk about festivals independent of their audience, independent of their funding, independent of something. You are kind of saying that the festival exists in a bubble of itself. So festivals need to be connected to the people, to the community, and that will include the government and the funders and the sponsors and the other people who live there, and audiences that buy tickets or do not buy tickets and come. So I think it is really important to be embedded.

If that works, then there will be some tourism. I do not think tourism as the main agenda is, in the long term, sustainable, because then it becomes something different. There are some music festivals, and music particularly, that rely a lot on tourism. But I am sad when I go to a place and you see everybody has left town because all of these tourists are coming. It is like taking over somebody's home. And now we will play in your home, but please go away, and then we will go away and we will put some nice furniture in your home when we leave, and we will give some nice gifts, but that is not what it is about. It should be that some people come to your home, you will be there and you can share, and then some people go away and you will go to their homes.

That is what it needs to be. I know that this is a bit idealistic. I know that this is not what you get funding for, and the funding is important, but I think there is a way to find a balance. In Hong Kong, I have aimed to have 30% tourists, because they are important, and we want to serve people who come to Hong Kong as well. But I think when that proportion gets flipped or the other way around, then it is not unsustainable, but it is a different thing.

I think it is a matter of history. European institutions have been around for a very long time. The Asian institutions are relatively new. There are some exceptions, but many are relatively new, and the Asians have been looking at the European models. In a way, because you can see what works and what does not work so well, you can actually gear what you want to do and also tailor things to fit your own situation and your own reality.

I think the latter is emerging now. So rather than looking at and trying to be like the other, I think in Asia, at least for myself, I am feeling greater confidence in our own identity, in our own cultural values. In fact, speaking from my own city, from Hong Kong, there is a desire now not only to learn from others, but also to share what we have and to show what we have. I think also there is a level of maturity for artists, for young artists who have been trained in Asia, and they are interested in going out into the world and showing what they can do as well. So, in this festival, you have things from all over the world. In the past, what came from outside was more geared to ancient traditions and heritage work, right?

Now, increasingly, I am seeing more contemporary work with a more contemporary sensibility, but which is different from the contemporary sensibility of other places which is great. If we are serious about cultural exchange and understanding each other, I think that is fantastic.

I think it is not a misconception so much as a lack of knowledge. Many people in Europe have not been to Asia, so they only see what is in the media or in tourism: the exotic East, all of these kinds of cliche images. And the same, I must say, is also true for Africa. We see the UNESCO posters, we see these images, and if you talk to Africans, they are actually very upset. This is not the Africa that they know and love and work to build. And I think the global South and Asia, are especially less known to Europeans and North Americans, they want to be at the table as equal partners. They want to be treated with respect, with interest, and to be in this collegial relationship.

I have no idea. I have been really, really fortunate. The opportunities that I have had, I have not sought. They have just somehow come to me. So managing an orchestra was not something I ever dreamed I would do, but somebody said, we need somebody to do this, can you do it? And I said, okay, I will try. I think part of this is talking to younger people, right? So I would say try. It does not matter. If you think you want to do A, and somebody says, look, there is D available, do it. It may lead to A in a long way. It may not. It may go somewhere very interesting, even more wonderful, that you had not thought about. So just take the opportunity. When the door opens, go in, explore, and if you do not like it, you can come out again. But go in. Do not sit there and say, I want this or else I am not going.

I was there when arts management as a discipline was almost just beginning, and I was very, very lucky. The other thing I would say is: have friends. Have friends. I did not even know about this programme in London until a friend told me about it. She said, “You are interested in this arts stuff, are you not? Here is a course I heard about. Maybe you can do this. Maybe you can take a look.” So that was how my formal training began. It was so early in the development of the field that even that programme was not yet very established.

My colleagues and I were part of what I would call one of the revolution years. At some point, we finally told the teachers and organizers: “We do not like this. This is not helping us. Please do something else.” So it was a very evolving situation. There are so many programmes now, and I think these programmes are great. But, like going to medical school, you need to learn the anatomy, and you need to have contact with the patients before you really know what you are doing.

And then, of course, practice matters. So get in there. I love your volunteer programme. Volunteer. Get involved. Do the slog work. If you have done the work on the ground, you have an idea of what goes on in the whole system. So do it. Get involved. Roll up your sleeves. Work.

The entire programme is phenomenal, and it really deserves to be better known. Over the years, you have invited so many remarkable companies, and they should become your best ambassadors. I mean, I am one of them. I talk about Sibiu every chance I get.

It is a small city, one you really have to look for on the map; it does not immediately pop up in people’s minds. But people often talk about the power of an event to place a city on the world map, and as far as I can see, the festival has truly done that for Sibiu.

Because we have to be, partly. And also because festivals like Sibiu continue, and because of the amazing artists that we have and the young people who continue to come into this profession with a view to taking it forward. It may go forward in ways that we do not anticipate, but the energy is there. And as long as human beings are there, there will be the performing arts. So many times technology has come and people have said, oh, this will die. The radio came, the recording came, the television came. It does not. We are human beings with a carbon base, and yes, we can use AI, and there will be better tools, and we can have more fun with those tools. But we are where we are.