­Last year it was Singapore in the spotlight and the festival was so successful the town famous for Orchard Road and Raffles Hotel invited the Fringe to visit it this year. So several festival events will be hosted at Singapore’s Arts House, a refurbished ex-parliamentary house now used as an arts space. Among them will be the Bare Stage Project, Ann Hui’s Hong Kong
on Film, Theatre du Pif’s The Overcoat and a Rachel Cheung Piano Recital.

However, these and other artists will first be showing off their talents to us in Hong Kong: in total over 120 artists from the SAR are involved with the festival this year, as well as a number of international performers from cities like London, Sydney, Munich and Tokyo.

Although a revival from last year’s festival, one of this year’s highlights must be the Bare Stage Project, a dance collaboration focused on ‘allowing the body to flow and the mind to grow’. Nine dancer-choreographers celebrate the essence of pure movement on a bare stage, their ideas realized in movements set to music especially chosen by artists and non-dancers excited by dance as an art form.

And One Couple Two Cultures, Two Countries, Two Systems is something for romantics and anthropologists among us. It’s a symposium that explores the experiences of three inter-racial couples living in Hong Kong, and the cultural obstacles they face. The couples range in age from elderly to youthful and are sure to present fascinating insights into what it is like to live intimately with someone of another race in our supposedly metropolitan city.

From the International Waters section of the festival programme, in a homage to Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa, Throne of Blood is a Japanese adaptation of Shakespeare’s great tale of murder and retribution, Macbeth. Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood was hailed with awe when it first screened in 1957, with one of the most chilling depictions of Lady Macbeth ever seen. The theatrical world premiere of this piece follows the exploits of a samurai warrior and his conniving, sinister wife to take the emperor’s throne, though their actions revert horribly to haunt them.

For revellers more into music than mayhem, riveting though it may be, Rain Pryor’s one-woman show, Divas, is a celebration of the lives and music of three female jazz legends. The tunes of Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday are interspersed with monologues that unveil reflections of these women’s often turbulent lives.

With a huge variety of artists from every field, this year’s City Festival promises to be as exuberant and successful as Singapore found last year’s. Though you might not think so when you pick up the programme. Designed by vantjia, its cover sees HK as a city lurking in a murky, grey fog. Which, says artistic director Benny Chia, was an intentional comment on how the vibrancy of Hong Kong and its arts is cloistered by the city’s pollution. It may not please everyone, he says, but that’s what the festival is all about ­– a celebration of the chosen city, pollution, warts and all.

The City Festival 2007 will run from January 11-27. Please see our listings for programme times, venues and details or check www.hkfringeclub.com