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Hailed as the "Dancing Museum", the National Folk Dance Ensemble of Croatia, LADO, will open the summer festival International Arts Carnival (IAC).
Organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, the annual summer arts festival will run from July 11 to August 17, featuring more than 410 events for family entertainment.
Dressed in dazzling regional costumes, top musicians and dancers from LADO will step out in vibrant style celebrating rural customs and the changing seasons to recreate a folkloric extravaganza that is romantic, communal, playful and festive.
The programme features an outstanding blend of folk arts rooted in the Mediterranean, Balkan, Pannonian and Alpine regions, and around 50 dancer-vocalists and virtuoso musicians dressed in eye-catching regional costumes. They will perform tightly co-ordinated routines with precise footwork accompanied by rarely seen musical instruments such as the samica, the gajde and the sopele.
"Lado", an archaic Slavic word, is a synonym for good, kind and nice, and is frequently used as a refrain in the ancient ritual songs of north-western Croatia. LADO was founded in 1949 in Zagreb as a professional national ensemble with the aim of researching, artistically interpreting and presenting on stage the most beautiful examples of the rich traditions of Croatian music and dance. It has built up an impressive amount of repertoire over the decades, and has collected over 100 folk dance routines, and several hundred vocal, instrumental and vocal-instrumental numbers, and 1 200 precious, beautiful and authentic costumes, some of which are over 100 years old.
This delightful programme includes two items of Croatian culture which appear on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The two items are Bećarac singing and playing from Eastern Croatia and two-part singing and playing in the Istrian scale, which are artistically incorporated into songs for stage performance.
The performances by LADO will be held at 7.30pm on July 11 and 12, and at 3pm on July 12 and 13, at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre. Tickets priced at $160, $220, $300 and $380 are available at URBTIX.
Half-price tickets are available for full-time students, senior citizens, people with disabilities and their minders, and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance recipients. Booking discounts of up to 20 per cent are available for other IAC full-price performing arts/film programmes.
Programme leaflets are available at URBTIX outlets or at the carnival website www.hkiac.gov.hk.
For programme enquiries, please call 2370 1044. Internet bookings can be made at www.urbtix.hk. Telephone credit card bookings can be made on 2111 5999.
Ends/Thursday, June 5, 2014
Issued at HKT 19:05
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