Taipei Arts Festival celebrates city's birthday

By Gavin Phipps
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Oct 08, 2004, Page 13

Taipei Arts Festival luminaries include Whalley Range All Stars and its 12m-high, 300kg pig. PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG , TAIPEI TIMES

Canceled last year because of the SARS epidemic, the Taipei Arts Festival made a welcome return to the capital's arts calendar earlier this week when the event, which is now in its sixth year, started in front of Taipei City Hall with a colorful display of acrobatics, music and dance.

Sponsored by the city's cultural department (台北市文化局) and the Ming Hwa Yuan Taiwanese Opera Company (明華園), this year's festival runs throughout October. While tickets are required for several of the performances, a majority of the festival's activities and programs will take place in the plaza adjacent to the Zhongshan Hall (中山堂) and are free.

As this year's arts festival coincides with the city's 120th birthday, the festival has been designed to incorporate the city's official birthday celebrations. Dubbed Open the Doors of the Old City, the focus of the 2004 Taipei Art's Festival is, according to a spokesperson for the Ming Hwa Yuan Opera troupe, "one of remembering the old city" and "is a search for traditional roots and modern dialogues."

Offering audiences a smorgasbord of art forms, the festival incorporates shadow and traditional Taiwanese puppetry, contemporary and classical music of an Oriental, Western and Aboriginal nature, Taiwanese opera, modern and traditional dance, as well as contemporary theater.

Participants in the 2004 Taipei Arts Festival include such celebrated names as Stan Lai's (賴聲川) Performance Workshop (表演工作坊), award winning folk crooners Chen Ming-chang (陳明章) and Lee Bin-hui (李炳輝), contemporary Aboriginal combo AM Band (AM樂團), the Ming Hwa Yuan Taiwanese Opera Company, the Ju Percussion Group (朱宗慶打擊樂團) and the Taipei Symphony Orchestra (臺北市立交響樂團) and more.

From the US comes the world music quartet, Tarana, which covers a diverse spectrum of modern and traditional folk music, including Afghani folk tunes, African tribal drumming. Also from the US, Magic Lantern Theater recreates the colorful and comedic magic lantern shows that were popular during the Victorian era. From Japan comes the Modern Japanese Puppet Show, a troupe that incorporates modern themes into its Bunraku, or Punch and Judy styled puppet performances.

The wackiest and most anticipated of this year's overseas performances is that of the UK's Whalley Range All Stars and its 12m-high, 300kg pig, which it has installed in the Zhongshan Hall Plaza. Everything you've ever wanted to known about pigs and more will be explained by the group over the coming week, when the it performs its offbeat and imaginative routines inside the stomach of the huge pink pig.

The Parade of Liu Ming-chuan (劉銘傳到台北大遊行) will take place on the afternoon of Oct. 24 and city streets will be closed to traffic as thousands of residents bedecked in period and, no doubt, quite outlandish costumes, will parade through the city from the North Gate to the East Gate in celebration of Taipei's 120th birthday.

A comprehensive, yet predominantly Chinese-language list of performance times and schedules can be found on the official festival Web site at www.tpeart.org.tw.