During the past few years, China Performing Arts Agency Theaters (CPAA Theaters) has further consolidated its presence in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, built a number of iconic and representative cultural and arts halls as well as performing arts centers such as Guangzhou Opera House, Zhuhai Huafa &CPAA Grand Theatre, Foshan Grand Theatre, Bay Opera of Shenzhen and Zhuhai Jinwan Art Center, and supported the construction of the Greater Bay Area into a humanistic area.

Guangzhou Opera House, a flagship performing arts institution of CPAA Theaters, launched the Greater Bay Area Ballet Incubation Center in collaboration with Hong Kong Ballet on September 20, 2024. It was another major measure taken by CPAA Theaters to promote artistic development and bolster cultural soft power of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Those in attendance of the unveiling ceremony included Kevin YEUNG Yun-hung, secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau of Hong Kong special administrative region (SAR), Li Baozong, general-manager of China Arts and Entertainment Group (CAEG), Zhang Sheng, member of the Leading Party Members' Group and deputy director of Guangzhou Bureau of Culture, Broadcasting, TV and Tourism, and Daisy Ho, chairperson of Board of Governors of Hong Kong Ballet.
The ceremony also witnessed the announcement of the cooperative plans for the special incubation center in the year ahead.

CPAA Theaters was formally set up under the support and guidance of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, former Ministry of Culture, and the Ministry of Finance in December 2009 and was launched on May 9, 2010. Together with the CAEG, it was transferred to the ownership of Bauhinia Culture Holdings. As a modern, international and comprehensive performing arts institution, it has mainly consisted of the building and operation of professional performing arts centers, performance operation, planing and marketing, content production and artistic exchanges, which are one of four major businesses of the CAEG.

The Arts Education Center of CPAA Theaters has made full use of its resources and strengths in the development of arts education. CPAA Theaters and its affiliated performing arts institutions have proactively held various lectures, training sessions, courses, artistic shows and study tours at home and abroad, strengthened the building of high-level artistic troupes, programs and performances, advanced platform construction for artistic enthusiasts and teenagers to engage in learning and display personal talent, and made unique contributions to the popularization of social arts as well as cultural building.

The newly-launched Greater Bay Area Ballet Incubation Center is mainly designed to build itself on local comprehensive strength like cultural cooperation and opening-up, bring together artistic strength of the entire region, expand domestic and international artistic resources, endeavor to be an integrated ballet incubation platform featuring human talent, artistic production and ecology, and develop the region into a frontier area for the high-quality development of international ballet sector.

"The Greater Bay Area Ballet Incubation Center is jointly established by Hong Kong Ballet and Guangzhou Opera House to further promote artistic and cultural cooperation and exchanges across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, strengthen personnel training on the basis of common resources available, and encourage young artists to devote themselves to artistic creation," said YEUNG. He added that the SAR government has attached great importance to talent cultivation and firmly supported the integrated development of the cultural and artistic sector in the Greater Bay Area and that it will continuously provide performing arts organizations and artists from the SAR with assistance in artistic shows and production in a drive to win more audiences, raise their artistic performance level, and further underscore Hong Kong's international cultural and artistic exchange hub.

Noting that the building of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is a major national strategy that General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping has personally planned, deployed and promoted, Li stressed that the CAEG has firmly positioned itself toward Hong Kong, remained committed to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, proactively taken part in the cultural building of the Greater Bay Area, and enriched the supplies of cultural products as well as services in the Greater Bay Area. He added that the launch of the Greater Bay Area Ballet Incubation Center is aimed at bringing together target resources in and beyond the Greater Bay Area, building professional platforms with international influence for ballet artists to seek artistic production and development, producing high-quality ballet works with Chinese characteristics and international recognition, and making unique contributions to the development of global ballet.

Li said that the establishment of the Greater Bay Area Ballet Incubation Center is an important measure taken by the CAEG to promote the high-quality development of ballet art in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and a fruitful result made by the CAEG in deepening its cooperation with cultural and artistic institutions as well as relevant academies in the two SARs.

"I have held a firm belief that Guangzhou Opera House and Hong Kong Ballet will shoulder their due responsibility and mission toward the high-quality development of cultural affairs in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The successful launch of the Greater Bay Area Ballet Incubation Center is a typical practice adopted by Guangzhou Opera House and Hong Kong Ballet to strengthen their bilateral cooperation and another major outcome made by Guangdong and Hong Kong in the midst of common and inclusive development as well as co-existence," said Zhang and added that the newly-launched ballet incubation center will become a new highlight of the cultural and artistic development and further promote cultural cooperation and development in a wider scope across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Ho said that Hong Kong Ballet has firmly adhered to its original aspiration and proactively engaged in ballet education and popularization over the past four decades and that it will hold more high-level performances, exchange and community-level activities in the years ahead. She said that she was happy to attend the inaugural ceremony and that the newly-launched ballet incubation center will organize more training, workshops, rehearsal and performance activities to help local young people find joy from ballet.

At the ceremony, Guangzhou Opera House and Hong Kong Ballet also unveiled their cooperation plans for the ballet incubation center in the year ahead, according to which the two sides will roll our ballet-related cultural tours in Hong Kong, the exchanges between Ballet program producers and dancers between Guangdong and Hong Kong, and joint ballet performances by children from the two regions to promote ballet resource interconnection and mutual learning as well as interaction between special talents across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Meanwhile, the ceremony also witnessed the opening of Hong Kong Ballet Academy, which was a new move taken by Hong Kong Ballet to further expand its artistic education and promote the popularization of ballet education. Guangzhou Opera House has also dedicated itself to the cultivation of ballet talents among youths over the past decades. Its affiliated children's ballet performing troupe has provided over 6,000 people with professional training since its establishment in 2014.
In the next step, Guangzhou Opera House will work together with Hong Kong Ballet to push for ballet talent cultivation and comprehensively advance ballet development through inclusive cooperation under the framework of the Greater Bay Area Ballet Incubation Center.