Cycling Piano—A Journey to Connect to Community
By Waillis Lee
COVID has brought new journeys to many of us. Over the past two years, we have all had to make adjustments to our habits, to our ways of life because of social distancing, and this has required greater resilience to cope with the uncertainty and to stay hopeful about life in general.
I am constantly thinking about how arts and culture can serve as a connecting tissue to bring hope, facilitate a sense of space, and promote a healthy and sustainable environment, especially during such challenging and often isolating times.
What “culture engine” can drive us forward?
As a cultural planner and producer, I have been searching for the wheels that might support such an engine, and I initiated the Cycling Piano project in West Kowloon to kick this journey off. The initiative combines elements of the performing arts and outdoor leisure with the aim of bringing joy to the community in which I live. Collaborating with Kevin Cheung, a renowned upcycling artist in Hong Kong, the Cycling Piano launched in August 2021 and will run through to the end of the year.
This example of street performance features a vintage piano on a tricycle on which young artists perform as they travel across the waterfront promenade and through the Art Park in West Kowloon. Visitors can interact and connect with the performers and participate in the musical joy being spread across this creative district.
The Cycling Piano itself is a piece of upcycled art made from artefacts of Hong Kong history and from the memories of its citizens.
The work was created from an antique upright piano crafted by a Hong Kong musical instrument store in the 1960s, and the piano bench is made from a transformed wooden staircase recovered during the preservation of a heritage building.
The Cycling Piano physically transports these local treasures from the past into today. Accommodating one cyclist and one seated pianist, it represents the concept of sustainability in two ways. First, the notion of an eco-friendly lifestyle is embedded in the joy of cycling, and, second, local craftsmanship is reinterpreted in a beautiful outdoor setting with the iconic view of the Hong Kong Victoria Harbour as its backdrop.
The feedback so far has been encouraging. Visitors to the area often cheer for the Cycling Piano as it passes by and tip and encourage the young performers. Children are particularly enthusiastic to jam along to the music with their bike bells, foot stomps, and applause, not to mention the pictures and videos everyone wants to take with the Cycling Piano.
The Cycling Piano is still evolving in West Kowloon. I am gathering the experiences gained and looking for ways to further its development. I want to see if it can be used as a model that can be applied elsewhere and serve different communities.
I am very much looking forward to my upcoming fellowship at New Haven where I can continue to explore and expand possible wheels of culture to gear up this momentum.
To learn more about the initiative, you can check out Cycling Piano’s webpage. You can also check out #cyclingpiano on Instagram and Facebook to see how joyfully audiences interact with the project. To contact me, please use waillis.lee@wkcda.hk or leewaillis@gmail.com.