STATE OF THE ARTS
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the British Council. In addition to its many outstanding public performances, it makes a point of taking theatre to the schools with productions mainly in Chinese but also in English; it is also achieving increasing notice for its experimental plays by local playwrights, 10 of which have been staged in the last four years, and which explore current attitudes to life, politics and topical issues. It has 12 full-time actors and four technical staff and also trains people to teach acting and drama.
The Hong Kong Ballet, despite the lurid headlines it attracted last year over leadership quarrels, resulting in the departure of its general manager, is the only professional Western ballet group and is now celebrating its 10th anniversary. It is a performing and education group regularly visiting schools, as much to kindle the interest of children in ballet as to develop audiences for the future. The company has 25 full-time dancers and increasingly its members will be drawn from graduates of the Academy for Performing Arts, as well as international dancers who are keen to be part of it.
The City Contemporary Dance Group is another regular performer to both the general public and schools and draws inspiration from local themes as well as from Western countries well versed in contemporary dance. This stress on a cultural mix is made by many in the arts world who say Hong Kong cannot afford to be the frog in the well but must take advantage of its international status and the opportunities to travel and broaden its vision.
Offering a considerable boost to all these activities is the Academy for Performing Arts, opened in 1985 and soon to turn out graduates in music, dance, drama and the technical arts. It is designed for 600 full-time students and is virtually Hong Kong's university of the arts, unique in running comparable courses in all four disciplines. Each school is headed by a Dean, and the Academy has 60 full-time and 150 part-time teachers, with recurrent costs of about $60 million a year. So highly esteemed is its reputation and so strong is the demand for places that hundreds apply for the 40 places available each year in each school, with the technical arts being particularly favoured because they provide well-paid openings not just in television studios but also in the many theatres that have mushroomed over the territory. An international accreditation panel, headed by the former Vice-Chancellor of the Hong Kong University, Dr Rayson Huang, and including the former Vice-Chancellor of the Chinese University, Dr Ma Lin, is at present assessing how its diplomas are likely to be rated in international performing arts circles. The academy also has a 1200-seat lyric theatre, a 400-seat drama theatre, a studio theatre, and open-air theatre, a concert hall and a recital hall which together with the stage facilities of the nearby Arts Centre, provide yet another complex of performance venues now regularly patronised by the public, as well as giving students ample opportunity to show off their talents.
Instrumental Music
While the academy teaches and trains at a tertiary level, many other institutions are doing equally good work at a lower level. The government's Music Office, launched by Sir Murray MacLehose more than 10 years ago following a strong recommendation in an enlightened and far-sighted report by David Stone, runs an instrumental music training scheme to promote interest among the young. It has more than 700 classes for 4 000 students and runs 22 orchestras and bands. Like the Schools Music Festival, it numbers among its graduates many of Hong Kong's outstanding musicians. It also hires out musical instruments to enable students to take them home to practise, and regularly takes its best students to international festivals, last year to Australia for performances in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
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