Festivals
International Arts Carnival 2017
The annual International Arts Carnival includes performing arts programmes and educational arts activities for children and their families, in the form of music, dance, physical theatre, acrobatics, magic, puppetry and film shows.
The 2017 carnival opened with the award-winning acrobatics extravaganza Pizzazz! performed by the China National Acrobatic Troupe. This was followed by some very diverse visiting programmes, including Slapdash Galaxy by Bunk Puppets from Australia, The Music Factory by Calefax Reed Quintet from the Netherlands, Home Sweet Home by Subject to_change from the UK, Gazillion Bubble Show by Fan Yang Productions International from the USA, The Polar Bears Go Up by Fish and Game from the UK, Shadow Space by Fireflies Shadow Theater from Ukraine, as well as two programmes tailor-made for babies: Puzzle by Dansema Dance Theater from Lithuania, and Beatles for Babies by La Petita Malumaluga from Spain.
Three local arts groups and artists were commissioned to create new works for young audiences. The programmes included Cooking Papa by The Theatre Wonderland, How are You, Neighbour? by Harry Wong, and Éphémère the Little Witch by the Hong Kong 3 Arts Musical Institute.
A total of 306 carnival events were presented, which attracted more than 94 000 audiences, with an average attendance of 90 per cent of capacity for 148 ticketed events. These made up a total of 83 stage performances, including nine overseas and Mainland programmes and three local programmes, and other fringe activities such as workshops, school and outreach touring performances.
World Cultures Festival 2017
The seventh edition of the World Cultures Festival, under the theme Vibrant Africa, showcased some of the continent’s most distinctive music, dance and theatre productions, performed by renowned artists and arts groups.
Senegalese world music star Youssou N’Dour with his band the Super Étoile de Dakar opened the festival with a special concert themed on New Africa, while the festival was concluded with performances of the Mandela Trilogy by Cape Town Opera, a stirring folk opera that paid tribute to South Africa’s great hero Nelson Mandela. Other music performances included those by Soweto Gospel Choir from South Africa, Angélique Kidjo from Benin, Sona Jobarteh from Gambia, and master musicians led by Bachir Attar from Morocco, showcasing the remarkable artistic tradition of Jajouka.
The festival also presented many distinguished theatre works, including two monodramas by South African actress Thembi Mtshali-Jones and Rwandan actor Ery Nzaramba, along with innovative Nigerian theatre piece Strelitzia and award-winning Kenyan drama A Man Like You. The festival commissioned local theatre practitioners to perform a series of play readings, including The Road to Mecca, a classic work by South African playwright Athol Fugard, as well as readings in the African Plays Tasting Series, lined up by the International Association of Theatre Critics. Dance programmes in the festival included Tlé (the Sun) by DAFRA Drum, a West African drum and dance ensemble from Burkina Faso, and two signature works Somewhere at the Beginning and Mon élue noire-sacre #2 (My Black Chosen One) of Germaine Acogny, the legendary ‘Mother of Contemporary African Dance’.
In total, the month-long World Cultures Festival presented 109 activities, including 13 overseas stage programmes and three local stage programmes in 33 performances. The festival also delivered extension activities in the form of exhibitions, workshops, talks, meet-the-artist sessions, demonstrations, and school touring performances. It attracted audiences of more than 70 000 in total, with an average attendance of 66 per cent of capacity for ticketed events.
Subvention to the Hong Kong Arts Festival
The LCSD provides an annual subvention to the Hong Kong Arts Festival. Held in February and March each year, the festival is one of Asia’s premier international arts festivals. In 2018, the 46th Hong Kong Arts Festival presented 130 ticketed performances and attracted over 113 000 people.
