The Mediterranean Arts Festival organized by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department of Hong Kong will run from Oct. 19 to showcase Mediterranean culture to the public.

Chief Manager of the department Elaine Yeung said at a press conference on Thursday that the festival will feature leading artists from Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and North Africa.

Along with the recognized Spanish Flamenco, Portuguese fado, Venetian carnivals and Greek tragedy, the festival also showcases art forms rarely encountered in this part of the world, such as The Whirling Dervishes of Turkey and Byzantine secular music.

By staying tuned to the month-long event, people in Hong Kong will have the opportunity to explore the cream of the performing arts in the region without leaving the city, discovering for themselves the enchanting world of Mediterranean music, dance, sound and color, said Yeung.

Opening the festival is "The Italian Feast" by Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble (Germany) with performers in beautiful costumes and masks to play early Baroque music, recreating the vitality of 17th-century Italian carnivals.

The closing program "Gala Flamenca Dance - Yesterday, Today and Always" (Spain) brings the legendary Flamenco performers and hottest young stars from the London and New York Flamenco Festivals in this unique showcase.

The festival will also feature Commedia dell'arte masterpiece " Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters," the National Theater of Greece's authoritative interpretation of "Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound," Byzantine secular music "Musical Heritage of the Mediterranean" and some other ones.

(Xinhua News Agency September 7, 2007)