Walt Disney's big draw
When Walt Disney planned Fantasia 60 years ago he wanted it to be an ongoing celebration of musical pictures in cartoon form. Every year he imagined a new Fantasia, including some familiar segments and many new ones - rather like going to a concert in the cinema.
But Fantasia projects piled up, animators and directors were busy with new films that would make the company famous, and it is only now that Disney has produced Fantasia II - or rather, Fantasia 2000 - fit for the Omnimax screen, and using new computerised graphics and a star cast of musicians - including James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra - and presenters, including Steve Martin.
It manages to be wildly creative: for Saint-Saens' comic The Carnival Of The Animals the animators asked what would happen if you gave a yoyo to a flock of flamingos. Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue is a celebration of New York and jazz and the power of the animator's pen: it starts with that sexy saxophone, and a single line of drawing, that becomes different characters - a building site worker, a fat lady with a dog, a desperate unemployed man - in a miniature 1930s comic soap opera.
One of the most beautiful works is a story played against a musical backdrop of Respighi's Pines Of Rome. Not a pine tree - and certainly not a Colosseum to be seen in this Disney fantasy however, which is about a little whale somersaulting in his iceberg-white world, and ultimately - in a magical moment that manages somehow not to get caught by the cuteness of the animation - learning to fly and soar like an angel. Fantasia - which includes one of the most famous segments from the first Fantasia, starring Mickey Mouse as The Sorcerer's Apprentice - continues at the Space Museum through March. Several performances a day: the 5.15pm one is in English. Tickets in advance from Urbtix 2734 9009.
Liquid refreshment Still on an aquatic and musical theme, Kwai Tsing Theatre will be hosting an extraordinary, creative poetry night on Sunday evening with Written On Water - a lively combination of poems and music about water.
Not just in the waves-on-beach or shipwreck stereotypes, but funny turn-your-preconceptions-around poems from West Africa about looking for water, a 20th-century poem by Rosemary Dobson about washing linen, and the Stevie Smith favourite Not Waving But Drowning.
Between the poems, read by Dino Mahoney and Pauline Burton to a watery backdrop, three musicians from the Hong Kong Philharmonic will play chamber music - from the 18th to the 21st centuries.
The second half will be dedicated to Coleridge's Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner - presented as what Mahoney describes as 'a spooky psychodrama' interspersed with George Crumb's haunting musical work Vox Balaenae (The Voice Of The Whale).
For Mahoney, one of the most exciting things about the project has been discovering the new theatre space. 'Exhibition Hall' does not sound very promising, but 'it's a big square room and it really has presence. The acoustics are great, it's a wonderful place for intimate performances, and I think that when people see it they are going to be excited.' Tickets from Urbtix.
Joining the sell-outs There are plenty of sell-outs at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, running through the month, but some shows still have limited tickets available. The top tip for the day is Janacek's opera Jenufa, performed by the Prague National Theatre, ending tonight at the Cultural Centre.
On March 5 there are a few tickets available for Joshua Redman's jazz band, also at the Cultural Centre: unusual because usually such major jazz performances sell out much earlier. Another show to catch is the controversial Edward II from the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Advertised as 'Edward II, Censors III', it is the story of a homosexual king in brutal times in England. In previous years, the British Airways advertisement in the Arts Festival programme has been on the lines of 'BA is proud to bring you . . .'. This year the wording is more circumspect, saying it has always supported the Hong Kong Arts Festival, 'which this year brings you Edward II'.
