ENG-1962 — Page 369

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THE ARTS

Masquers (A Midsummer Night's Dream), the Hong Kong Singers (Chu Chin Chow and The Gondoliers), the Sino-British Club Dramatic Group (The Dream of Red Chamber in Cantonese), the Hong Kong Dramatic Club (The Song of Lee Kee, a traditional Chinese play in English), the Endeavourers (The Abyss in Cantonese) and the Wah Yan Dramatic Society (The Golden Comb, Cantonese opera sung in English). There were also many performances of Chinese opera by various groups. During a short visit to the Colony Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray gave two performances of Shaw's A Village Wooing and Sutro's A Marriage has been Arranged.

Several films of opera and ballet were shown in the City Hall theatre, including Der Rosenkavalier, The Royal Ballet and The Bolshoi Ballet. Studio One, the Film Society of Hong Kong, also used the theatre for its regular monthly film shows.

In the field of fine art, now that permanent galleries and rooms are available, Hong Kong residents and visitors have an oppor- tunity of seeing in a central and convenient location continuous displays of local work. In addition, the opening of the City Hall art gallery brought for the first time a series of exhibitions of various kinds from overseas. Four exhibitions were held simul- taneously in the art gallery and museum to mark the opening of the City Hall. These were a selection of paintings of historic interest (from the Government Collections); examples of the sculpture of Barbara Hepworth (a British Council travelling exhibition); Cartoons by Hoffnung and 40 lithographs and etchings by British artists (from the St George's Gallery, London). These exhibitions remained on view for six weeks and were followed by an exhibition of Chinese painting by Chang Da-chien. In May there was an exhibition of work by local artists entitled Hong Kong Art Today and in August the first large-scale photographic exhibition from abroad, entitled The Camera Looks at London, was put on display.

Art gallery and museum presentations for the remainder of the year included a selection of 48 prints by British artists, with work by Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore and others, an exhibition of photographs of Hong Kong in the nineteenth century and an exhibition of stamps to mark the centenary of their issue in Hong Kong. At Christmas the large and spectacular Children's Art