News Express Feature: Cultivating Hong Kong through cultural training

October 2013 News Express | 中文版

Feature:

Cultivating Hong Kong through cultural training

In 2008, the Legislative Council approved an upfront endowment of HK$21.6 billion to establish the West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) with a view to encouraging the artistic and cultural development of Hong Kong and facilitating artistic exchanges with other parts of the world.

A total of 15 performing arts venues will be built with the first phase due for completion in or before 2018. These will include the M+ Museum, which will focus on visual culture from Hong Kong, mainland China, Asia and other parts of the world from 20th to 21st century, the Xiqu Centre for Chinese traditional theatre, the Arts Pavilion, the Blackbox for Freespace contemporary, multi-disciplinary performances, and an Outdoor Stage in the form of an acoustic shell and modular theatre. The second phase of development will cover performance theatres, the Centre for Contemporary Performance, and some resident company facilities that are desperately needed by Hong Kong’s local performing arts groups.

Following the launch of the WKCD project, art and cultural programmes started to roll out in early 2012.

Among them was the popular debut of the West Kowloon Bamboo Theatre during the 2012 Chinese New Year. The M+ Musuem also started a series of innovative programmes and exhibitions including “Mobile M+: Yau Ma Tei”. This was the first in a series of “nomadic” exhibitions curated by M+. The museum also received a donated collection of 1,463 pieces of contemporary Chinese art valued at HK$1.3 billion from Uli Sigg, the world’s leading collector of Chinese contemporary art.

In September, the ground-breaking ceremony took place for the 7-storey Xiqu Centre. This is the first major performing arts venue to get going in the WKCD and is expected to be completed in 2016. WKCD also launched an open invitation for entries to the single stage design competition for the Arts Pavillion.

With the development of the physical venues of the WKCD, comes a new demand for art and management professionals to manage, develop and run the facilities. This is why the School has started a number of programmes to meet these demands and to promote art and culture in Hong Kong as a whole.

Related programmes include: Postgraduate Diploma in Creative Industries Management (Arts and Culture); MA/MSc/PgDip in Museum Studies in collaboration with the University of Leicester, UK; and Certificate in Liberal Studies (Performing Arts).

This programme is co-organised and taught by professional staff from the Chung Ying Theatre, one of Hong Kong’s leading professional theatre companies. In its more than 30 years of operating, Chung Ying has staged more than 250 successful productions, received more than a hundred award nominations and nearly 80 Hong Kong Drama Awards.

The programme covers both theory and practice. Students will learn different facets of theatre arts, from engaging in theatre games to studying performance techniques, and from learning the aesthetics of theatre arts to administration. The programme aims to allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in their future employment after graduation.

The programme is suitable for those with an interest in pursuing a career in theatre, or education, marketing, management and administration.

Through the appreciation and analysis of Beethoven’s masterpieces, the programme aims to show how a composer uses different musical elements and creative techniques, in order to help students compose the music of their own.

Students will learn how to expand tunes and develop musical ideas, discover the keys to writing allegros and adagios and enjoy an introduction into writing solos, duets, musical accompaniment and instrumental arrangements and techniques.

The programme is suitable for those interested in music composition, music teachers, conductors and students of the 3-3-4 new senior secondary curriculum.