From the large practice room on the third floor of the National Institute of Arts (
The afternoon sun pours in through half-drawn blinds. The floor is covered in black plastic. Robert Burden Jr, a tall African American, is perfectly at ease among the 30 odd Taiwanese students practicing in front of him. And they, weary and exultant as they gradually work toward perfecting the complex tap rhythms and movements, respond with easy familiarity to his directions. That he talks in the easy slang of his native Philadelphia does not in the least interfere with the communication process.
"They sing the little song at the end sometimes because they hear me sing it all the time -- the da di di da da ... And that's good, because that tells me that they're listening," Burden says during a break between his tap class and a jazz class.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING TAIPEI TIMES
Close encounters
And it is this willingness to listen -- and to look and learn -- that seems to have so greatly impressed the foreign teachers who are part of the Taipei International Dance Festival (
The association has been active in bringing many outstanding foreign acts to Taiwan, but Chen says more is needed. "This doesn't provide enough in-depth interaction between local and foreign performers."
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING TAIPEI TIMES
For her, the Taipei International Dance Festival is the answer. Held between July 16 and Aug. 5, the camp is an opportunity for the interaction between students and foreign professionals that until recently in dance had been restricted to those with the time and money to study overseas.
The idea of bringing outstanding performers from overseas to broaden the horizons and hone the skills of Taiwan's performance artists is not a new one. The Taipei Philharmonic Foundation for Culture and Education (
Building an arts environment
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING TAIPEI TIMES
For Ju Tzong-ching (
Speaking of when she was a student in Taiwan, Wu Hsin-yi (
Since 1991, the Ju Percussion Group has hosted a percussion music convention every three years to bring percussionists from all over the world to Taiwan. But exposure was limited, so this camp, which includes students ranging from primary school to college, brings teachers and students together in a way not previously possible. Now in its second year, the camp has doubled its enrollment.
Steve Houghton, a jazz drummer and educator from California, was impressed with the musical foundations of even the younger students. Yet the element of exposure to new musical styles and instruments is an important part of the camp for many students. For instance, "Nobody here plays drum sets," says Houghton. "These kids are all coming through the school system and it's not a school instrument."
In his sun soaked classroom, kids ranging from primary to junior high school took turns on the drum sets, with Houghton moving around the room, tapping the beat, casually making a correction here and there.
"They've had very little jazz, and no Latin experience," Houghton said. "So you feel a little like a missionary, bringing this different music in and teaching them how to interpret it."
Finding a new rhythm
As Houghton's class of young jazz drummers strives to come to grips with the unfamiliar environment of a drum set and new kind of beat, the dancers across the campus are sweating hard under Burden's direction.
"I didn't know you could sweat so much dancing tap," says one student, wiping herself off at the end of class. "He'll be impressed."
And Burden is. Pointing to one of his students, he says with admiration: "I can tell that she goes home and works on them, she practices, and my heart just goes `yes!' It is like a wonderful feeling when you see this."
Although many of his students have considerable experience in dance, tap is very new to most of them. This goes for the African dance taught by Donna Mejia as well. "Even if many of them may have been dancing for 13 or 14 years, they are brand new at what we are giving them. We are teaching them to use their bodies in a new way ... and this helps them create new ways of thinking. So you will inevitably have an overall impact on their adaptability as a dancer, even if they may never be professional African dance artists."
Poverty in wealth
Even in art forms in which Taiwan would seem to have ample cultural resources, the input of someone coming from a different perspective can be immensely valuable. That is why Sun Chen-chieh (孫成傑) of the Puppet Beings Theater Company (偶偶偶劇團) organized the First International Puppet Art Camp (第一屆國際偶戲藝術學苑), held at the Taiwan Arts Institute (台灣藝術學院) in Mucha between July 27 and Aug. 4.
Sun's dilemma, much like that of percussionist Wu, was that when he started to become involved in puppetry 11 years ago, there were few avenues available for study.
"We would copy images from overseas, but we didn't really understand what we were doing," he says.
Of course, Taiwan has a long tradition of puppetry, but this has always been based on an age-old apprenticeship system that generally only attracted the indigent or those already within the profession.
"The old puppeteers would give us a few pointers," Sun says, but that was about all. Modern-style interactive education was a world away from many of the old masters.
"You watched [your master] until you knew how to do it. He never taught you," says Li Chuan-tsan (
For a master's graduate in computer science, this was hardly the way to go. Now, having returned from the US and the dramatic arts program of the University of Connecticut, Sun wants to give the new generation of puppeteers more opportunities.
"The beginnings of ... puppet theater are in China. This is an opportunity to give some input into the tradition from which the art of puppetry sprang," says Bart Roccoberton Jr, Sun's teacher and a professor of puppet arts.
Ken Ho (
Looking down the line
Standing in a musty smelling room with a bad leak in one corner, desks pulled away from the wet patch, Sun talks about the difficulties of putting the puppetry camp together. The piles of rudimentary shadow puppets that lay scatted over the desks, some Asian, some European, some uncategorizable hybrids, bare testimony to the enthusiasm of the students, even in these less than ideal surroundings.
"Costs are very high," Sun says, and government subsidies of NT$180,000 are barely adequate to cover expenses.
"This camp operates at a loss, but it is important to do this," Sun says. "It is very important to bring people interested in this art together."
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