Education is a lifelong process, but starting at an early age has its advantages. That's precisely the idea behind Young Friends of Hong Kong Arts Festival.
Since its inception in 1992, Young Friends has been an integral part of the annual Hong Kong Arts Festival, which was launched in 1973. Young Friends is dedicated to promoting arts education among young people, especially in a city where parents often overlook the creative side of a child's development.
Young Friends rolled out their latest school tour last month, which includes a multi-discipline performance entitled Mozart's Adventure. The show is a combination of dancing, singing and acting.
'There are a lot of performances that use Mozart's music,' explains Chan Siu-tung, 24, scriptwriter and lead performer for Mozart's Adventure. 'So I thought it would be interesting to see how he saw others using his music [in other disciplines].'
The result is a clever 20-minute play filled with quirky humour, solo dances and singing. It explores Mozart's early days as a composer and his interaction with a ballerina and opera singer, both of whom motivate him to write pieces for them.
'The dancing was great,' says Lee Wing-yi, a Form Three student at Kit Sam Lam Bing Yim Secondary School. 'They even explained the difference between contemporary dance and ballet.'