LCSD Annual Report 2003 - Cultural Services - Arts Education and Audience-building Programmes

In an effort to cultivate the community's cultural literacy, the department launched a number of arts education and audience-building schemes within the community and at schools. In 2003, 215,653 people participated in these schemes.

Various arts education programmes were organised at schools to encourage students to develop an interest in arts and to foster their cultural literacy in their early years.

The department collaborated with local performing groups with rich experience in arts education to implement the School Arts Animateur Scheme. The scheme was designed using schools as platforms, to provide an in-depth introduction to different performing arts among students and to stimulate their creativity and potential in the arts. Students demonstrated their artistic achievements in the grand finale performances or activities after completing a series of arts education programmes.

The School Culture Day Scheme was launched to mobilise schools to bring students to LCSD performance venues, museums and libraries during school hours to take part in the arts and cultural activities especially arranged for them. The programmes offered opportunities for integrating arts, history and science into the learning process and everyday living. The scheme, comprised of various programmes and featuring interactive learning, was very well received by students of primary, secondary and special schools.

Arts education activities were also specially designed in connection with the core programmes of the two LCSD arts festivals. In the summer International Arts Carnival, more than 60 individual and mini-series workshops introduced children to the performing and visual arts. The New Generation Self-Exploration Venture youth workshop and public presentation series offered young people intensive participatory experience in the arts. Prior to the carnival, arts groups also visited 114 secondary and primary schools to bring the arts to students.

Contributing to the School Culture Day project, the Legends of China Festival offered free performances for secondary school students. The Festival arranged the mini Peking opera Yan Xijiao and the concert of Chanting from Mountains Afar for university students on campus and demonstrations for secondary school students. A large outdoor concert by traditional drum troupes from China, staged at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza, attracted a large number of people. Other festival extension activities included exhibitions, workshops and lectures.

At the community level, the audience-building programmes offered included the Artist-in-Residence Scheme, the Community Cultural Ambassador Scheme and the District Cantonese Opera Parade.

The Artist-in-Residence Scheme provided opportunities for the community to gain an insight into the work of artists by participating in interesting educational activities conducted by artists during their residency at various performance venues. Contributing to the School Culture Day Scheme, specially designed arts education programmes for the children and youths were provided by schemes such as Yeung Ching Yee's Glove Puppet Promotion Scheme, Hong Kong Ling Nan Orchestra's Into the World of Chinese Music and DanceArt's Fantasticks — A Journey to Musical.

Outreach activities aimed at making the arts more accessible to the community were organised under the Community Cultural Ambassador Scheme with activities taking place in public space like parks, shopping malls and community centres and venues of voluntary agencies. Some of this year's schemes, including Chung Ying Theatre's One Play for One District — A Community Theatre Implementation Project, Shu Ning Presentation Unit's Hong Kong Legends and Theatre Fanatico's Re-mapping Hong Kong, emphasised studying and demonstrating community cultural heritage.

The District Cantonese Opera Parade helped promote Cantonese opera at the district level and offered public performance opportunities for potential amateur Cantonese opera troupes and budding artists to practise their skills.

By implementing the Cultural Services Volunteers Scheme for the second year, the department encouraged people to make better use of their leisure time to provide voluntary work in promoting arts and culture. The scheme also provided an opportunity for the volunteers to further acquire knowledge in different art forms to broaden their horizon and to raise the quality of humanities. Through the scheme, the department achieved its target of recruiting 1,800 volunteers.