On Oct. 31, the National Concert Hall and the National Theater will turn 15. At a press conference last Tuesday, Chiang Kai-shek Cultural Foundation director Ju Jung-ching
Ju, the director of Taiwan's most highly regarded percussion ensemble who took over management of the National Theater and Concert Hall last year, said that an important aim of the nation's premier performance venues was to bring down the entry barrier for the appreciation of the arts. "It is for this reason that we have brought in corporate sponsorship for some events," he said, pointing primarily to the Jose Cura and Kathleen Battle recitals in November, where premium seats will be available for only NT$2,500 and prices going as low as NT$400. The event is being sponsored by the Delta Foundation (
Saying that he did not want to upset proceedings, he gained vocal support from an audience that included many of Taiwan's top performers when he pointed out that the corporate support that the CKS Cultural Foundation was so loudly promoting was only going to high-profile classical music concerts, with absolutely nothing for drama. Although ticket sales for The Aurora Borealis (
PHOTO: IAN BARTHOLOMEW, TAIPEI TIMES
In line with lowering the entry barrier for people who might not generally be regular theater-goers, a number of big shows have been scheduled for outdoor spaces around the theater and concert hall. This will include a massive outdoor performance of ketsai opera by the Ming Hwa Yuan Taiwanese Opera Company (明華園). Chen Sheng-fu (陳勝福), the president of Ming Hwa Yuan, promised to draw 200,000 for a free outdoor concert scheduled for Oct. 31, in a display of bravado that is well backed up by the company's strong commercial record. Overall, for indoor performances, CKS public relations chief Liu Jia-yu (劉家渝) said that there were at total of 120,000 tickets to be sold for the three month season of 107 performances.
In addition to Jose Cura and Kathleen Battle, the other major imported acts include a visit by cello virtuoso Misoslav Rostropovich (Sept. 7), the first and third groups of the Nederlands Dans Theater (Oct. 11-13 and Oct. 25-27) and the Choir of Westminster Abbey (Oct. 27). High-profile local premiers include Smoke by the Cloud Gate Theater and in the minor league, the launch of the Zhu Lu-hao Traditional Chinese Theater Company (朱陸豪京劇團), in which famed comedian Sung Shao-ching (宋少卿) in what is being billed as "new Chinese comic opera" (Oct. 17-20) and She is Walking, She is Smiling, by Performance Workshop directed by Chin Shih-jie (金士傑). On the music front, the National Symphony Orchestra, under Chien Wen-bin, will perform the complete Beethoven symphonies and piano concerti in five concerts in September.
Tickets are already on sale, and for the major events are selling well. More information about events can be found on the Web at http://www.ntch.edu.tw.
In the next few months tough decisions will need to be made by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and their pan-blue allies in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It will reveal just how real their alliance is with actual power at stake. Party founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) faced these tough questions, which we explored in part one of this series, “Ko Wen-je, the KMT’s prickly ally,” (Aug. 16, page 12). Ko was open to cooperation, but on his terms. He openly fretted about being “swallowed up” by the KMT, and was keenly aware of the experience of the People’s First Party
Aug. 25 to Aug. 31 Although Mr. Lin (林) had been married to his Japanese wife for a decade, their union was never legally recognized — and even their daughter was officially deemed illegitimate. During the first half of Japanese rule in Taiwan, only marriages between Japanese men and Taiwanese women were valid, unless the Taiwanese husband formally joined a Japanese household. In 1920, Lin took his frustrations directly to the Ministry of Home Affairs: “Since Japan took possession of Taiwan, we have obeyed the government’s directives and committed ourselves to breaking old Qing-era customs. Yet ... our marriages remain unrecognized,
Not long into Mistress Dispeller, a quietly jaw-dropping new documentary from director Elizabeth Lo, the film’s eponymous character lays out her thesis for ridding marriages of troublesome extra lovers. “When someone becomes a mistress,” she says, “it’s because they feel they don’t deserve complete love. She’s the one who needs our help the most.” Wang Zhenxi, a mistress dispeller based in north-central China’s Henan province, is one of a growing number of self-styled professionals who earn a living by intervening in people’s marriages — to “dispel” them of intruders. “I was looking for a love story set in China,” says Lo,
During the Metal Ages, prior to the arrival of the Dutch and Chinese, a great shift took place in indigenous material culture. Glass and agate beads, introduced after 400BC, completely replaced Taiwanese nephrite (jade) as the ornamental materials of choice, anthropologist Liu Jiun-Yu (劉俊昱) of the University of Washington wrote in a 2023 article. He added of the island’s modern indigenous peoples: “They are the descendants of prehistoric Formosans but have no nephrite-using cultures.” Moderns squint at that dynamic era of trade and cultural change through the mutually supporting lenses of later settler-colonialism and imperial power, which treated the indigenous as
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