The Works：HK Arts Festival: Ballet Zurich's "Anna Karenina", Vox Clamantis from Estonia & Harbour Ar

March is upon us, and as usual for art lovers it’s a pretty hectic month. Towards the end of the month, in visual arts, we’ll be welcoming Art Basel, Art Central, the Asia Contemporary Art Show, and an array of other events organised by galleries and museums. Under way already, and with the focus on performing arts, is the 2018 Hong Kong Arts Festival. This year it includes more than 1,700 international and local artists, 130 performances, and more than 300 outreach and education activities. In today’s highlights from that festival we’re bringing you a dance programme from Zurich and a music programme from Estonia. The dance is a ballet version of Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenina.
The novel’s been turned into several films, TV series, and stage plays. Ballett Zürich opened this year’s Arts Festival with its two-and-a-half-hour production, choreographed by Artistic Director Christian Spuck.

Keeping up with Hong Kong’s cultural activities every week isn’t always a walk in the park, but this week, for one story at least, it was exactly that: a walk in the park.
The Hong Kong Arts Centre’s “Harbour Arts Sculpture Park” which is open until 11th April, features 21 works by 19 artists from seven countries. It includes sculptures by artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Tracey Emin, Jenny Holzer, Antony Gormley, Kacey Wong, Morgan Wong and more. You can touch or interact with many of them. But do keep your hands off of Kusama’s iconic pumpkin.
The Estonian vocal ensemble, Vox Clamantis was founded by conductor Jaan-Eik Tulve in 1996. It’s known for its interpretation of Gregorian chant and medieval plainsong. But it’s also known for performing the more contemporary music of composer Arvo Part. Apart from two evening concerts in the Arts Festival that included Gregorian chant, Liszt, Poulenc, Messaien and Arvo Part, the ensemble also ventured outside the concert hall and into an art gallery, for a site-specific performance that brought together Arvo Part’s music and the paintings of Gerhard Richter.