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.