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Vivienne Chow

Hong Kong's ambition to become Asia's arts hub could be hamstrung by a lack of home-grown talent.
The city's arts institutes are scrambling to meet the increased demand for performers expected when the West Kowloon Cultural District opens its venues from 2015. 
Despite annual subsidies of hundreds of millions of dollars for arts development, publicly funded dance troupes and orchestras still rely overwhelmingly on foreign performers. 
Relatively few home-grown talents are hired - according to a survey by the South China Morning Post of the city's nine flagship arts groups - in striking contrast with their counterparts in South Korea and Taiwan.
This shows a worrying imbalance in the city's arts development. 
While Hong Kong is investing more than HK$21 billion to build world class arts venues and facilities in West Kowloon, it seems to have a problem getting enough local talent to make the best use of them.
Margaret Yang, chief executive of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, warned that demand for local performers will grow sharply with the opening of the arts hub. 
'The ideal scenario is to nurture more local talent,' she said. 'They have a much deeper attachment and loyalty to a place, unlike those coming from overseas, who might just leave the city in a couple of years' time.'  
The government pays an annual subsidy of HK$264 million for nine flagship groups - Hong Kong Ballet, Hong Kong Dance Company, City Contemporary Dance Company, Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, Chung Ying Theatre, Zuni Icosahedron, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra.
Only 10 of the 90 full-time musicians employed by the Philharmonic - which receives a subsidy of HK$62 million a year - are from the city. 
Fifteen of the 90 musicians, including non-Hongkongers, received tertiary-level training at the Academy of Performing Arts (APA).
In Taiwan, at least 70 of the 91 musicians at the Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra were born or educated locally. In Taiwan's leading dance company, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, 24 of the 25 dancers are locals. Similarly, more than 60 per cent of the musicians in the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra are local talents.
A lack of home-grown talent will limit local productions, forcing theatres and orchestras to rely heavily on foreign performers and content. 
This could make it more difficult to increase the public's interest in cultural development.
At the Hong Kong Ballet, only four out of 42 full-time dancers are from the city, while 10 were trained at the APA. The troupe has 23 dancers from the mainland. 
Madeleine Onne, the ballet's Swedish-born artistic director, wants to see more Hongkongers in the troupe, noting that in Scandinavian companies home-grown dancers account for about half of the positions.
'It's important for any company to have dancers who were born and raised locally,' said Onne. 'But the reality is, only a handful of Hong Kong dancers made it to the ballet troupe.'




Shortage of talent threatens arts hub