ENG-1995 — Page 407

RECREATION, SPORTS AND THE ARTS

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and technical arts followed a year later and summer 1995 saw the first cohort of degree students graduating when 29 Bachelors of Fine Arts were among the 229 students on whom academic awards were conferred by Governor Christopher Patten at the Ninth Graduation Ceremony. Dr Helmut Sohmen, OBE, who retired from the council at the beginning of the year after eight years as its chairman, was honoured at the same ceremony with the award of Fellow of the Academy.

The developing talents of academy students were on display to the public at venues including the ballroom of Government House, which saw the third annual concert series of Academy Music at Government House. Academy theatrical productions included seven drama productions, two major dance productions in the Lyric Theatre and in March a production of Strauss's Die Fledermaus in the Drama Theatre. Every week of the academic year also saw two or three concert or recital performances by students of the School of Music which contributed to maintaining the academy's reputation as a major Hong Kong performance venue.

The academy's international character and reputation continued to be a feature of its development in 1995. Students were welcomed from most Asian countries and the academy's international dimension was reinforced through performance tours which included participation in the Schools of Dance and Technical Arts at the La Baule Festival in France in July and performances by a brass quintet from the School of Music in London as part of the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in Hyde Park. Later that month, the academy provided an entertainment of dance and music following a dinner hosted by the Hong Kong Government in Tokyo as part of a Hong Kong promotion week in Japan.

-Hong Kong Arts Centre

The Hong Kong Arts Centre is an independent, non-profit-making organisation founded in 1977 to promote the arts and culture. Its funding is derived from rental income, box office receipts, business sponsorship and donations from individuals and companies. It incorporates the 439-seat Shouson Theatre, the 193-seat Lim Por Yen Film Theatre, the 80-seat McAulay Studio, the Pao Sui Loong and Pao Yue Kong Galleries, the Atrium Gallery, rehearsal rooms, art and craft studios, music practice rooms and classrooms. As a community resource, it encourages outside organisations to make full use of its facilities.

As a multi-discipline arts organisation, the Hong Kong Arts Centre offers a platform for contemporary work in the performing, visual and cinematic arts as well as featuring avant-garde and multimedia art forms. It encourages the work of non- established artists and groups of all disciplines and the development of indigenous art forms. Resources are also dedicated to outreach work in arts education offered by established artists, art historians, curators, theorists and art administrators. In 1995, the centre was visited by more than one million people, many of whom attended the 1 050 stage and screen performances, 95 exhibitions and 780 arts-related courses held at its venues.

Highlights of the year included the exhibitions Art and Electronics; New German Art after Beuys; Chadigarth; Forty Years after Le Corbusier; New Man; The Art of Indecency; Magnum Cinema; the film programmes A series of 8 programmes celebrating the centennial of the cinema; Women Filmmaking; Black American Film Festival, Early Hitchcock A season from the Champagne Piper Heidsieck Classic Film Collection; Great Stories of Passion A European Film Festival; 5th Lesbian and

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