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The World Cultures Festival 2011 - Enchanting Arts of Asia, organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, will run from October 20 to November 20.
The biennial World Cultures Festival journeyed through the arts and cultures of Latin America, the Mediterranean region and along the Silk Road in its past three editions. Focusing on Asia this year, the festival will showcase a wide range of outstanding works from around the region, blending the traditional with the contemporary, and showcasing renowned performing arts groups and artists.
The world-renowned National Ballet of China will open the festival with its classic works and star dancers, presenting three diverse repertoires to captivate audiences. "Ballet Gala" on October 20 will feature excerpts from timeless masterpieces by Chinese and Western choreographers to showcase the company's half century of amazing achievements. "The Red Detachment of Women" on October 21 will provide an invaluable opportunity to enjoy the most popular Chinese revolutionary model ballet from the late 1960s. The all-time favourite "Swan Lake" on October 23 will blend immaculate ballet technique with the uniquely Chinese essence that has helped to launch the company into the international spotlight.
The festival will close with the all-female and Plum Blossom Award-winning Red Mansion Troupe of the Shanghai Yueju Opera House, presenting a diverse line-up of classic productions, new works appearing in Hong Kong for the first time, and excerpts from outstanding Yue operas.
Another wonderful closing programme is "DESH", a new full-length contemporary dance solo performance from the award-winning British-Bangladeshi dance master Akram Khan. The performance will return to his family's cultural roots, weaving threads of memory, experience and myth into a surreal world of surprising connections to create an intimate yet epic stage production.
Hailed as "a genius choreographer in Taiwan's dance scene" and named in 2002 as one of the eight most significant choreographers in the world by ARTE, one of the most important art and culture television channels in Europe, Lin Lee-chen together with Legend Lin Dance Theatre will make its Hong Kong debut with "Song of Pensive Beholding", which will deliver powerful dance vocabulary interweaving with dance visual imagery and symbolic meaning to create a truly Eastern aesthetic encounter.
Japan's national treasure and premier solo taiko drummer Eitetsu Hayashi will appear in Hong Kong with his accomplished ensemble, Eitetsu Fu-Un no Kai, and bamboo-wind maestro Makoto Takei to give an awe-inspiring concert blended with contemplative tranquillity and explosive emotion from Japan.
The festival will also feature:
* Chae Hyang Soon Dance Company (Korea) in "Splendour of Korea"
* Hong Kong Dance Company's "Two Swallows - Ode to Wu Guanzhong"
* The concert "The Manganiyar Seduction" (India)
* Gong Tri Pitaka (Indonesia) in "Iridescent Balinese Gamelan and Dance"
* The concert "Celestial Songs"
* Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra's "Commemorating the Centennial of the 1911 Revolution: The World Is for All"
* Thang Long Water Puppet Troupe's water puppetry (Vietnam)
* The Princess' Blackbox's "Our Best of Youth in Cambrian"
* Hong Kong Repertory Theatre's "Shed Skin"
Apart from performances, the festival will also offer a series of extension activities including exhibitions, a masterclass, workshops, lecture demonstrations, talks, meet-the-artist sessions, foyer performances and an outdoor entertainment programme.
Tickets for the World Cultures Festival 2011 - Enchanting Arts of Asia are available at URBTIX from tomorrow (August 12). Half-price tickets are available for full-time students, senior citizens aged 60 or above, people with disabilities and their minders, and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance recipients. Group booking and package discounts of up to 20 per cent are available.
Programme brochures are available at URBTIX outlets or at the website, www.worldfestival.gov.hk.
For programme enquiries, call 2370 1044. For credit card telephone bookings, call 2111 5999 (from August 12). Internet bookings can be made at www.urbtix.hk.
Ends/Thursday, August 11, 2011
Issued at HKT 16:02
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