Invited by the Macau SAR government in 2016, and by the Focolare Movement Community in Macau and Macau Diocesan Social Communications Centre this year, the International Performing Arts Group “Gen Verde” hosted a three-day workshop and an evening concert with more than 70 young people from Macau, Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
Gen Verde is a group of musicians and performing artists with a distinctly international profile. The current line-up is 22 women from 15 countries. They are all lay consecrated members of Focolare Movement founded by Chiara Lubich, a Servant of God.
From 18th to 20th July, four workshops including theatre, choir, percussion and dance were held at the Colégio Mateus Ricci for an evening concert at Teatro Clementina Leitão Ho Brito on 21st July. His Excellency Dom Stephen Lee was present in the spirited performance with more than 650 people in the audience. In his speech after the show, Bishop Lee noticed that “love” and “peace” are two of the keywords throughout the songs of Gen Verde.
The Tour Director of Gen Verde, Sally McAllister, in the interview with O Clarim, stated that it is important to have blessings with the Bishop’s pastoral plan for the families and young people. She stressed that the workshops and the performance are never disjointed from the “faith element” which is so strong and can be communicated.
Ms. McAllister recalled how Gen Verde started as a response to the signs of the times during the Second Vatican Council. It all began with the gift of a green drum set to a group of girls in the International Centre of Loppiano of Focolare Movement in December 1966. Those drums became the symbol of a revolutionary lifestyle in which shared talents could become key instruments for building unity in diversity.
Kelly Ng, a student from University of Saint Joseph, described this experience of performance as “miraculous.” She learnt that there is nothing more important than mutual love and “koinonia.”
Participants Amanda Kou and May Ng both agreed that they enjoyed the stage so much with Gen Verde and other young people from the region. May had been in the workshop with Gen Verde in 2016. She found that the passion of Gen Verde remained the same while the performances were different.
Gen Verde has performed in over 1,500 shows and events, in public squares, theatres and stadiums, with hundreds of tours all over the world, and a production of 69 albums in nine languages.
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