ENG-2000 — Page 455

RECREATION, SPORT AND THE ARTS

the year, 412 performances were staged in the two indoor stadia, attracting over 1 541 035 people.

Cultural Presentations

Leisure and Cultural Services Department Cultural Presentations

The LCSD presented a total of 1891 performances, covering a rich variety of performing arts programmes by local and visiting artists. These attracted a total audience of 669 515 people.

Music highlights included concerts by the Budapest Festival Orchestra with the renowned soprano, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, the Midsummer Classics by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra with the local conductor Mak Ka-lok, Voices of Light the Passion of Joan of Arc combining a classic cinema and a beautiful oratorio, celebrated violinist Gil Shaham, Roby Lakatos and his ensemble, the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, the China National Symphony Orchestra Chorus taking part. in the Community Concert Celebrating the 3rd Anniversary of the Establishment of the Hong Kong SAR and a newly commissioned production of the Italian opera Tosca. To promote different genres of music, the LCSD also organised the Chinese Instrumental Virtuosi Series with Lu Chunling (dizi) and Min Huifen (erhu) as well as the Jazz Up series with Laura Fygi (voice), Charlie Haden (bass/composition) and Eugene Pao (guitar).

Highlights of dance programmes included the Dance Spectrum featuring performances by the National Ballet of China, Hong Kong Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, DV8 Physical Theatre and the World Ballroom and Latin American Dance. Others highlights were performances by leading companies such as the People's Liberation Army Comrade Dance Troupe, Guangzhou Song and Dance Company and the City Contemporary Dance Company. On the multi-arts front, the multi-media music theatre City Inside a Broken Sky by Kung Chi-shing & Friends - which combined live music with dance movements, voice, film projection, words and objects and the song and dance extravaganza entitled www.Sing Sing-Dance Dance@Yuen Long.com were aimed at remembering and conserving Yuen Long's indigenous culture, and attracted much public interest.

Theatre programmes featured a wide variety of works by local creative forces including the Chung Ying Theatre Company, Zuni Icosahedron, Theatre Ensemble, Actors' Family, Prospects Theatre Company, Theatre Space and Theatre du Pif, together with promising groups such as the Shu Ning Presentations Unit, Archaeology Bird Workshop, Trinity Theatre and Pants Production. Leading groups invited from overseas included the Young Vic Theatre Company from the United Kingdom as well as the San Francisco Mime Troupe that performed a joint collaboration project with the Hong Kong Theatre of the Deaf.

During the year, the LCSD also promoted Chinese culture and arts. Performing groups invited from the Mainland included the Xiqu College of China, Jiangsu Peking Opera Theatre, Shanghai Yue Opera Theatre and the Comrades-in-Arms Peking Opera Troupe of the Beijing Military Region. Newly commissioned Cantonese operas or revivals of traditional works included Daming Prefecture by the Lung Kar Fung Opera Troupe, Four Scholars by the Yuen Siu Fai Production Company, Martial Role Showcase by the House of Cantonese Opera, The Judge Goes to Pieces by the Kim Sum Cantonese Opera Troupe and Heroes in War Time by the

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