Integrating Culture and the Arts

ANALYSIS

The Sixth Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Culture and Arts Festival opened in Shenzhen 31st October and will continue across the GBA until the closing ceremony scheduled for 3rd December, positioning Guangzhou and Shenzhen as the international performing arts centers of the GBA.

This year’s festival opened in Shenzhen with designated landmarks in 11 GBA cities lighting up simultaneously. The Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with the Shenzhen Opera and Dance Theater Chorus performed an original symphonic suite. The “Pearl River Suite,” composed by Shu Nan and Chen Si’ang, celebrates the central waterway, the commercial and connective historical lifeline and home for the people of the GBA. The themes tell of the natural landscapes and cultural heritage – including the core Cantonese heritage of the region – building towards the expression of economic and social reform and the opening up of the regions within the GBA, to each other, and internationally.

The expansive festival consists of 75 productions of which 36 are GBA debuts. The sheer number and distribution of the 148 performances and 25 exhibitions present opportunities for local residents to appreciate a broad range of creative experiences. Artists are drawn from across the globe, from Chinese cultural centers within and beyond the GBA and from the rich creative landscape of local communities. Hong Kong and Macau performing arts institutions and cultural organisations from the represented GBA regions and abroad have come together to continue the high-quality development of a shared artistic creativity.

Cantonese opera makes room for young performers

Locally, Cantonese Opera gets an entry-free fiesta day on the 29th November in Hong Kong. The program supports both youth and child performers, encouraging a pipeline of artists. Busking, Cantonese Opera workshops on stylised movements and postures, and family activities demonstrate support for this traditional cultural heritage. Other domestic highlights are far too numerous to present here, but centrepiece stage event is the marathon nine-hour trilogy of the hit “Blossoms”. Adapted from Jin Yucheng’s novel, from which a television series was produced, the trilogy will be played out across two theatres in Guangzhou.

International stars from across the artistic spectrum constitute nearly one-third of the productions. Grammy Award-winning Canadian jazz singer Diana Krall will start her Asian tour from the GBA in Hong Kong on the 13th November, heading to Guangzhou two days later. In a rare opportunity for GBA audiences, Russian operatic soprano, Anna Netrebko, together with baritone Artur Rucinski and bass Alexander Köpeczi, headlined a pre-festival event in Shenzhen Concert Hall performing Verdi, Donizetti and Tchaikovsky in the middle of October.  Nicholas Kenyon of The Telegraph said of Netrebko, “She has transformed herself into the leading dramatic soprano of our time. Hers is still a voice to conjure with, and her command of the stage…is unequalled.” In yet another cross-border collaborative event, Chinese-born virtuoso pianist Yuja Wang will perform in Xinghai with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

The closing event also celebrates the ability for art and music to bring a diversity of collaborators together: baritone Leo Nucci will sing La Traviata with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra and choral experts from the Xinghai Conservatory of Music under the baton of Jing Huan, currently serving as Permanent Conductor of the China National Symphony Orchestra and as the music director of the Guangzhou Symphony Youth Orchestra – book-ending the festival with another Shenzhen-Guangzhou collaboration.

Jing is well known for her development of young musicians. In her capacity as the music director of the youth orchestra, she took the orchestra on their first European tour in 2013 and since then to cities across Oceania and Asia, returning to other destinations in Europe.

These repeated embedded themes of international, cross-regional, inter-disciplinary and youth involvement play out in the underlying support programs as well as the line-up of performers and artists.

Funding backs a new generation of artists

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Culture and Arts Festival is just one of the initiatives jointly presented by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region. In support of the event were other funding and competitive initiatives to encourage, in particular, youth involvement in the arts. In March, the Youth Literary and Art Creation Support Project was launched for artists under the age of 45. The chosen proposals across music, dance, drama opera and other stage arts received project funding, publicity and promotional support. History, the culture of southern China and folk customs of the GBA, artistic innovation and cultural depth were included in the assessment criteria indicating the importance of a shared cultural heritage. Big “C” culture continues to be integral to GBA integration

Purpose can also be ascertained from the uplifting message in the festival’s promotional video. The images bring together daily life and artistic expression, exhorting us to incorporate the discipline of excellence and beauty of creativity to elevate the prosaic. The verbal message in the video suggests as society moves forward, we can also elevate our normal existence through mutual awareness of creative aesthetics: “We remember an autumn for a melody. We remember a city for an exhibition. We make new friends by inviting them to enjoy the same music…dancing to the rhythm of life.”

The imagery is one of sharing experiences across generations in poetic synergy, enhancing and deepening a shared meaning across the GBA. Ouyang Han, a young baritone, who performed at the official opening, explained the purpose behind the performance he was part of – “So that audiences across GBA can feel a deeper connection.” Leanda Lee, MDT