The metamorphosis of the Hong Kong Arts Centre is truly under way. Having shifted its focus and resources towards arts education, its Art School has started enrolling students; not only for its on-going degree course in fine arts, which it has been co-running with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT) since 1997, but for seven new diploma and certificate courses in applied art. They include diplomas in fine arts, graphic communication, interior design, fashion design, computer animation and photography, film and video, and certificates in art and design.
While the RMIT remains the degree-granting body for its four-year fine arts course, this is the first time the Arts Centre has offered their own diploma and certificate qualifications to its students. To accommodate this expansion new teaching premises, in a nearby commercial block, are scheduled to officially open on April 28. 'With new donations, we will be running fine arts and computer art classes there,' says executive director Louis Yu Kwok-lit.
The Art School currently has around 200 students studying the fine arts degree course and, since December, has hired six full-time qualified art teachers. 'Those on the fine art degree course are likely to be mature students who are mainly either teachers or designers,' Yu says. 'But with the new certificate and diploma course, which should be up and running in a couple of months, we are hoping to attract a much younger crowd like Form Five and Form Seven graduates.'
Still at the Arts Centre, its theatre division will be running an all-female series next month to celebrate 'girl power'. Conceived approximately a year ago, senior manager Ribble Chung says the Girl Play series aims to give local female performing artists a voice in a male-dominated domain. She says: 'When word got out about this all-girl series, the response was overwhelming. I didn't realise there were so many actresses who also wanted to direct or produce.' Joining home-grown artists - including Yau Ching, Yeung Wai-mei and Evelyn Choi - are Taiwan's Critical Point Theatre Phenomenon, Peggy Shaw, Stacy Makishi and Lois Weaver from New York.
