RECREATION, SPORTS AND THE ARTS
350
emerging artists of Hong Kong the opportunity to hone their skills and create new works.
The 1996 Fringe Festival was staged over four weeks in January and February. Some 320 000 people experienced performances by more than 200 groups and individual artists from Hong Kong and overseas.
Urban Council Presentations
Cultural Presentations
The Urban Council organised a total of 362 performances of various performing arts programmes, attracting a total attendance of 279 207. Music highlights included concerts by the Russian State Chorus, the China Folk Songs Ensemble, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, the Philharmonic Orchestra of La Scala, and celebrated virtuosi Maria Ewing, Gheorghe Zamfir, Mstislav Rostropovich, Evelyn Glennie and Viktoria Mullova.
The Hong Kong Cultural Centre Midsummer Classics by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland offered six concerts with a wide music spectrum, while the two Chinese instrumental concerts featuring sheng, shona and pipa brought together master musicians from China and Hong Kong.
Dance programmes also featured a wide variety of works by local creative forces such as Edward Lam's Dance Theatre and the City Contemporary Dance Company, the new commissioned production of Swan Lake by the Hong Kong Ballet, and performances by leading dance troupes such as the Paul Taylor Dance Company and the Frankfurt Ballet. On the theatre front, works by about a dozen local drama groups were presented.
Operatic offerings included Yu opera by the China Yu Opera Troupe and the Italian opera Turandot, which was a local production featuring overseas principals.
Hong Kong International Film Festival
The Hong Kong International Film Festival is one of the world's major annual, non- competitive film festivals. The 20th Festival in 1996 presented 203 films from 41 countries. Apart from the screening of films, several fringe activities were held, including the posters and stills exhibition of participating films, seminars and outdoor film shows. With assistance from the Hong Kong Film Archive, some films were restored and screened for the retrospective topic The Restless Breed: Cantonese Stars of the Sixties. The Hong Kong Film Archive also staged an exhibition on Superstars of Cantonese Movies of the Sixties. The festival attracted a total audience of 129 640.
Hong Kong Independent Short Film and Video Awards 1996
Jointly presented with the Hong Kong Arts Centre, the competition aims to encourage creative non-commercial independent productions of short film and video in Hong Kong and to promote the interest of the public towards film and video as artistic, communicative and expressive media. The competition was categorised into five sections: Drama, Documentary, Animation, Music Video and Others.
Festival of Asian Arts
The 16th Festival of Asian Arts was held over three weeks in October and November, featuring 20 overseas and nine local performing groups. It attracted 107 700 people.