Hong Kong Arts Festival

The inaugural Hong Kong Arts Festival (HKAF) took place in 1973. ==Description==

Genres seen and heard at the Hong Kong Arts Festival include classical music , Western opera, Chinese opera, world music, jazz, drama, dance, musicals. Large-scale special events and outdoor events. HKAF presented top international artists and ensembles, such as Cecilia Bartoli, José Carreras, Yo-Yo Ma, Philip Glass, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Chailly, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Sylvie Guillem, Kevin Spacey, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre, Bavarian State Opera, New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Cloud Gate Dance Theater, Zingaro, Royal Shakespeare Company, Moscow Art Theatre, and Beijing People's Art Theatre. HKAF actively collaborates with Hong Kong’s own creative talent and showcases emerging local artists. Over the years, HKAF has commissioned and produced over 250 local productions across genres including Cantonese opera, theatre, chamber opera, music and contemporary dance, many with successful subsequent runs in Hong Kong and overseas. HKAF frequently partners with renowned international artists and institutions to produce exceptional works, such as Der Fensterputzer (The Window Washer) co-produced with Goethe-Institut Hong Kong and Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch; Richard III and The Tempest produced by The Old Vic, BAM and Neal Street under “The Bridge Project” with HKAF as a co-commissioning institution; Green Snake co-commissioned with Shanghai International Arts Festival; Dream of the Red Chamber co-produced with San Francisco Opera; Laila, a co-produced with Finnish National Opera and Ballet, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , co-produced with The Central Academy of Drama, China and Compagnie Point Fixe. HKAF invests heavily in arts education for young people. Over the past 33 years, our “Young Friends” scheme has reached around 849,000 local secondary and tertiary school students. A variety of arts education projects serving primary, secondary, and tertiary school students have been launched in recent years, featuring activities such as student showcases, pre-performance talks, open rehearsals, opportunities to attend Festival performances, as well as in-school workshops and lecture demonstrations led by international and local artists. Donations to the “Student Ticket Scheme” also make available approximately 10,000 half-price student tickets each year. HKAF organises a diverse range of “Festival PLUS” activities in community locations each year to enhance engagement between artists and audiences. These include films, lecture demonstrations, masterclasses, workshops, symposia, backstage visits, exhibitions, meet-the-artist sessions, and guided cultural tours. HKAF actively promotes inclusion via the arts to every corner of the community. The “No Limits” project, co-presented with The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, was launched in 2019. Through a series of performances and diverse arts experiences for students and the community, “No Limits” strives to create an inclusive space for people with different abilities to share the joy of the arts together. To provide greater financial security and long-term sustainability for the Festival, the Hong Kong Arts Festival Foundation was officially launched in 2022. Donations to the Foundation will be used towards enabling the Festival to present in the future large-scale or special projects which its annual budget cannot cater for. == Hong Kong Arts Festival Commissions and New Works ==

Every year the Hong Kong Arts Festival (HKAF) commissions and produces a series of original works that range from chamber opera, contemporary dance, theatre, innovative Beijing opera to contemporary music. These works bring together individual artists and collaborators as well as organisations from different artistic fields, whose talent shines on stage and backstage. Initiated in Hong Kong, these productions are not bound by a geographical “localness”, but transcend the local identity to echo the sensibilities of Mainland China, Taiwan Asia or even the world. This is part of HKAF’s vision as an international arts festival, and the direction it has taken in making arts as a major arts organisation in Hong Kong. The Festival explores different modes of commissioning and production for each new work. Most of these productions are directly commissioned and produced by the Festival, which supports the creation of these works in every way from the conception of production, script development to selection of performers, creative and production teams, and oversees production arrangements, marketing and publicity, sales, and even the publication of new plays. As an independent producer working within the limits of this often hectic environment for artistic creation and production in Hong Kong, we hope to build a stronger framework with arts practitioners for the creation of new works. Apart from original local productions, we established cross-border collaboration with artists from Mainland China, Taiwan, Germany, France, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and the US. In exploring new thematic possibilities and creative concepts, we also set out to expand the international reach of the Festival through these co-commissions. == Chairs and directors ==