Anne Imhof’s ‘House of Swans’ Is Ballet for a New Era

Hong Kong, make way for Anne Imhof. The German artist is coming to Tai Kwun Contemporary next month to premiere House of Swans, her first major solo in Asia.

The exhibition, curated by Ying Kwok and Tiffany Leung, features a monumental commission of new works that span oil paintings, bronze sculptures, sonic installations, and video. It takes shape as a series of “charged encounters” that “explore bodily presence, restriction, and authority,” per Tai Kwun, unfolding across the institution’s three floors.

A titular performance is also in the mix. The “House of Swans” ballet builds on the storyline laid out in the exhibition, “[following] a heroine struggling on her path to love through a chaotic cityscape” in an “imagined future.” It features musicians and dancers from the Hong Kong Ballet, alongside American ballet dancer and Imhof’s partner Devon Teuscher.

The piece takes after the final ballet sequence of DOOM, her most elaborate and massive performances to date, loosely based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, where she first met Teuscher. With nods to some of the genre’s classics, like Swan Lake and Giselle, the forthcoming performance clues us into the Swans’ origin story, how it came to embody hope as the third house to the original’s Capulet-Montague factions.

“I’m interested in [classical forms] such as ballet because I want to tell different stories,” Imhof said in a recent interview. “Because autocrats use ballet as a soft power tool par excellence, it doesn’t mean it’s theirs. This is almost like an attempt to claim it back.”

The exhibition will be on view from September 25 to January 3, 2027, with special performances slated for September 25 and 26, and others on deck through the show’s run. Check out Tai Kwun Contemporary’s website for more details.

Tai Kwun Contemporary
10 Hollywood Road,
Central, Hong Kong