The founders of Cuadro Flamenco Fuego Fantastico (迷火佛拉明歌舞坊), Li His (李昕) and Lin Ken (林耕), are putting on a Gypsy fiesta with singing and dancing this Saturday night. The couple have decorated their studio at 3, Ln. 303, Alley 8, Sec. 3, Nanking E. Rd., for the event, which will features lots of the dancing the couple have become famous for. The show runs from 7:30pm to 9pm.
The couple said that Flamenco originated in Spanish Andalucia, where gypsies would perform during gatherings of family and friends. In the Taipei studio, the couple will be joined by their students, as well as professional flamenco dancers Huang Hui-ju (黃惠汝), Hsu Hsiao-ying (徐曉瑩), Liu Yen-ching (劉燕親), Tang Fan-ying (湯凡瑩), and the guitarists Chan Che-hsiung (詹哲雄) and Chuang Wei-jen (莊維仁).
The flamenco dancers will perform ten pieces of flamenco. Fiesta de Sevillanas, staged by all of the participating dancers, is one of the most popular folk dances in Spain. The music is upbeat and audience claps its hands throughout the performance. With Guajira, a more romantic piece, the dancers will be performing with Spanish crescent-shaped fans. Bulerias de Jerez, another jovial piece, is a chance for the audience to enjoy a number of solo performances. Tickets are NT$250. For reservation, call 2718-2011.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and