Is China’s Guangdong province ready for Hong Kong performing arts?

From exhibitions to theatre, efforts to enrich Guangdong’s cultural sector under the Greater Bay Area development plan are already well under way

But despite some truly stunning venues, issues including censorship, operational matters and depressingly small audiences are holding things back

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Some of the Greater Bay Area’s new cultural performance venues are truly stunning, such as the Zhuhai Opera House – its two giant white “scallop shells” can be seen from miles away.

Published: 2:15pm, 12 May 2019Updated: 9:20pm, 13 May 2019

One of the stated goals of the Greater Bay Area development plan unveiled by Chinese President Xi Jinping in February is to integrate nine cities in southern China’s Guangdong province with neighbouring Hong Kong and Macau to create “an international first-class bay area ideal for living, working and travelling”.

The main focus is on how Hong Kong’s superior finance, legal and logistics structures can aid the development of its less-developed neighbours. Less attention, however, is being paid to how the city’s arts practitioners are also being seen as key players. Their role is to help enrich Guangdong’s cultural sector by taking their works to China’s former manufacturing heartland.

Efforts so far include the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts’ ongoing discussions with the Guangzhou Opera House to open a drama school in the southern Chinese city; cross-border visual art exhibitions, of which more are planned; and last November, an outdoor music festival was staged in Zhongshan, with Hong Kong and Guangdong musicians performing together to mark a new era of cultural collaboration.

One area receiving the most attention – and budget – is the performing arts. Last year, the Hong Kong budget set aside HK$140 million (US$17.8 million) in funding for “Greater Bay Area cultural exchanges” to be held between 2018 and 2023. The funds are to be used by the city’s Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) to take small- to medium-sized Hong Kong groups to perform in the newly designated area.

A scene from Art School Musical, a production by Hong Kong’s Edward Lam Dance Theatre at the Zhuhai Opera House.

The government has also been arranging for larger groups to try out venues in places they previously feared to tread. Outside Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the seven smaller mainland cities comprising the Greater Bay Area all boast new and extravagant opera houses and theatres, some with wild, eye-catching designs – but they don’t have enough content or audiences to fill them.

It seems like a fair exchange. Hong Kong, a former British colony which still retains its own border and freedom of expression after its 1997 reunification with China, has produced some of the region’s top performing arts companies but is desperately short of venues. Guangdong is close in distance – especially now that stage sets can be trucked across the new Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge – as well as in language and culture.