Reality-check TV

WHEN RTHK RECENTLY launched its Young Chinese Performers television series, eyebrows were raised. After all, eight out of the series' nine performers are from the mainland, with only pianist Colleen Lee Ka-ling representing Hong Kong.

The documentary series, which is costing HK$2 million to produce (half of that coming from the Swire Group Charitable Trust), has been billed as the follow-up to Young Chinese Musicians and, therefore, a guide to the hottest talents on the international performing-arts circuit.

The selection of only one Hong Kong artist raises at least two questions. First, whether the city is short of young talent; or, second, whether the programme reflects kowtowing by the public broadcaster, which is currently undergoing a government review?

Executive producer Winnie Ho Wai-ying insists that the project is free of any political agenda. She says her main concerns are to 'uphold financial prudence and create social impact' with a series that took almost a year of research, and by September will have involved six months of filming.

Ho, who directed two episodes in Young Chinese Musicians, says local performers are generally inferior to their contemporaries elsewhere. 'When Hong Kong Chinese dancers and musicians are compared to Chinese in China and overseas, there is, indeed, a gap in artistic standards. We were looking for performers who have achieved high international standards.'

Fitting that bill are pianist Chen Sa, choreographer/dancer Xing Liang, soprano Zhang Liping, erhu player Karen Han, violinist Huang Mengla, choreographer Lee Hanzhong, cellist Qin Liwei, ballerina Faye Leung and Colleen Lee. Episodes about Chen and Xing have already been aired

Xing and Leung are now locally based, with the former resident artist at the City Contemporary Dance Company, and the latter a principal with the Hong Kong Ballet.

Han, an Anhui player of the two-stringed erhu, became the first Chinese instrumental soloist to perform a transcription of Vittorio Monti's violin piece Csardas at the Hollywood Bowl in 1997. Yunnan dancer and choreographer Lee Hanzhong founded his own Beijing LDTX Modern Dance Company, having choreographed modern dance pieces for several years in the US, Australia, Taiwan and on the mainland. Colleen Lee became the first Hong Kong Chinese to reach the final at the International Fredric Chopin Piano Competition, in which she finished sixth last year.

The series now includes dancers and singers, but some deserving artists have been left out. Ho admits that the series has overlooked the likes of choreographer Yuri Ng Yue-lit, whose works have received acclaim in Hong Kong and Japan. But she says production logistics and the programmes' visual quality were considerations in selections.

Hong Kong Dance Company principal dancer Su Shu, for instance, couldn't participate in the programme because she suffered a back injury during the shooting schedule. A couple of big international names were also dropped because they didn't present any new or ongoing works at the time of production, or were too expensive to feature.

Shanghai-born Tan Yuanyuan, the principal ballerina at the San Francisco Ballet, was dropped because she wasn't doing any new work at the time - and also was too expensive, because of stage union and copyright agreements, Ho says.

'There were cases where, if we filmed the stage, we had to pay,' she says. 'It could cost up to HK$10,000 to show two minutes of stage performance.' Ho says Huang Duoduo, artistic director and principal dancer of the Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble, was also too costly. The rights to film Huang on stage have been sold to a Chinese film company associated with director Zhang Yimou, Ho says.

Hong Kong Arts Festival programme director Grace Lang Cheung-wai says the artists featured in Young Chinese Performers have all had high profiles during the past few years - the Arts Festival, for instance, presented Zhang Liping earlier this year.

Lang also says it's easier to identify classical musicians because their success can be quantified by the number of awards or competitions they have won.

'It's a lot harder to identify an outstanding stage actor because the good or popular ones have crossed over to other media such as television and movies,' says Lang, referring to the absence of any representation from the theatre in the series.

Lang says the series' casting of mainly mainland or overseas Chinese artists doesn't mean the city lacks talents.

'If you dig deep and hard enough, you'll find them,' she says. 'It looks like this series focuses more on artists who are more visible in recent years than those who are working behind the scenes.'

Young Chinese Performers, TVB Jade, 7pm-7.30pm, Sundays. Ends Sept 17