Earthy ideals in Ibsen play
WRITTEN more than 100 years ago by Henrik Ibsen,An Enemy of the People remains a powerful drama in which truth, justice and economic necessity clash violently when a tourist town's medicinal springs are polluted.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth believes local people will readily recognise the contemporary relevance of the issues explored.
Half the proceeds from a special Earth Day benefit performance on April 22 will go directly to FoE to further its research, educational programmes and campaigning.
Performances are at the Shouson Theatre from April 14 to 16 and April 20 to 23. Tickets, $150 except on Earth Day when they are $300.
THE self-deprecating title of the latest collaboration by Afa Chiang and Wong Kwan-sun - Double Fading - belies the production's quality but accurately reflects the reticence of two of the territory's most experienced choreographers.
The performance, in 12 five-minute segments each featuring mysterious ''moving shadows'', is a disparate patchwork of pieces that meld into a creative whole.
Double Fading is at the Arts Centre Shouson Theatre on Thursday and Friday. Tickets, $60 to $80.
FRENCH pianist Jean-Philippe Collard will give a recital of works by Chopin and Liszt at the Sha Tin Town Hall Auditorium on Saturday.
The influential Collard is best known for re-invigorating a national piano style formerly considered shallow and even trite. He has said that the new generation now has ''more vigorous, less precious things to say''. Tickets, $40 to $90.
TWO young musicians will play with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in a programme highlighting Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and Richard Strauss' Oboe Concerto at the Cultural Centre Concert Hall on Friday and Saturday.
They are Xue Wei, the Tchaikovsky competition silver medallist, described by The Guardian as ''combining formidable technical prowess with great breadth and variety of expression'', and Douglas Boyd, widely regarded as one of the finest wind players of his generation. Tickets, $50 to $190 from URBTIX.
THE Fringe Club has a varied lineup on offer. First up is a group of playlets by the Not So Loud Theatre Company under the title, Sex, Thugs and Rock 'n' Roll , starring Neil Harris and lawyer-turned-actor Richard Smith. The action revolves around thetragic farce Whitney Houston Stole My Underpants , the perceptive Reg and Ron and a cautionary tale, Bigger Than The Beatles. Tomorrow until Saturday. Tickets, $110 ($100 for Fringe Club members, $90 for students).
Dance group Baby Bull, presents Plimsoll Line , a four-part search for a human measure of overload, from Thursday until Saturday. Tickets $90, $80 (members) and $50 (students).
Described as ''aggressive, unbalanced and perverted'', Miss Margarida's Way (in Cantonese) from the Brazilian novel about a schoolteacher who teases and taunts her pupils unmercifully. From April 14 to 16. Tickets, $70 (members $60). THE Anglo-American husband and wife team of Colin Andrews and Janette Fishell will play a programme of solos and duets on the grand pipe-organ at the Cultural Centre's Concert Hall on April 14.
Following the solo pieces, the couple - who married in 1980 - will combine to play several duets drawn from the mainstream but also including many innovative transcriptions of their own.
The solos are expected to include works by Bach, Bonnet, Vierne and Tournemire, with Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.3, Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War , Ippolitov-Ivanov's Procession of the Sardar and Glier's Russian Sailor's Dance also in their programme.
Tickets, $50 to $120, available through URBTIX.
