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A year around town

Compiled by Taipei Times Reporters

Saturday, Dec 31, 2005, Page 16

The local art scene flourished in 2005 with traditional arts, such as puppetry. PHOTOS: TAIPEI TIMES AND AGENCIES

The past year has been Taiwan become more firmly imbedded on the international cultural events circuit with concerts and performances given by some of the world's top performers. The local scene didn't fair too badly either with contemporary music and the traditional arts making strides at home and abroad. Interestingly, only one event from the first half of the year made it on to the list. Below are the 'Taipei Times' top 10 events from 2005, listed in chronological order.

Samingad wows fans at Red Theater
(Jan. 14)
Songstress Samingad (紀曉君) represented Taiwan at the 2005 MIDEM conference -- the first time Taiwan has been invited to perform at the event that draws the world's top music industry professionals to Cannes, France each year. Before she left, she let local audiences hear for themselves why she was chosen. Her concert at Taipei's Red Theater not only brought a full house, it brought together some of Taiwan's best Aboriginal musicians to help her stage one of the year's most memorable performances.

It was hot at the Formoz Festival with Oki.

Formoz Festival socks it to rockers!
(July 29 through July 31)
The Formoz Festival (野台開唱) celebrated its 11th anniversary in style with an electric atmosphere. The hot and humid weather conditions that greeted music fans was best summed up by the star of the festival, Moby, who, halfway through his set addressed the crowd with two simple words -- "It's hot!" He the stole the show with his blistering non-stop 90-minute set.

Samingad wows fans at Red Theater

And hot it certainly was. The festival included great sets from folk-rocker Lisa Loeb, Japan's hugely entertaining J-pop combo Kishidan, high-energy ska outfit Kemuri and Taiwan's Golden Melody Award winning black-metal act Chthonic (閃靈樂團), who in an odd choice of couplings teamed up with ocal alt-pop/rock star Sandee Chen (陳珊妮).

Public Enemy
(Aug. 17)
Public Enemy was in magnificent voice when it delivered a two-and-a-half hour set at Ministry of Sound in Taipei, playing songs from their earliest and latest albums and also taking a bite out of other artists' repertoires, with nods to Rage against the Machine, the Wu Tang Clan and most impressively a final encore of Jimi Hendrix's Foxy Lady, including guitar picking with the teeth and a wall of feedback.

Chuck D of Public Enemy.

It was hard, old-school hip hop, angry and uncompromising. Earlier, Chuck D and Griff rolled out the band's manifesto for journalists and talked about the "four elements" (DJing, MCing, graffiti and breakdancing), the current state of hip hop and changes in the recording industry -- but managed to veer away from the Jewish question and other thorns that have stuck in their side before now.

Chicago sexed things up a bit for local theater goers.

`Chicago' makes a splash in Taipei
(Aug. 6 through Aug. 17)
It's not often that Taipei theater goers get to savor a Broadway show, but when the traveling production of John Kander and Fred Ebb's Chicago rolled into town for two-weeks of performances at the National Theater audiences were delighted.

There was plenty of art for the average person at the Festival in the Square. PHOTOS: TAIPEI TIMES AND AGENCIES

And rightly so, as while Chicago's staging was minimalist the musical still managed to captivate its audience thanks to inspired performances from Kevin Carolan, Terra MacLeod and Tracy Shayne.

The highly sexual choreography of Bob Fosse and show-stopping numbers helped of course, and tunes like All That Jazz, Cell Block Tango and We Both Reached for the Gun were all expertly executed.

Pavarotti snubbed Taipei but wowed Taichung.

`Taike' comes out of the closet
(Aug. 19 through Aug. 20)
The phrase taike (台客) was long used to ridicule all things Taiwanese but its meaning was revised in 2005 in order to put a positive spin on such earthly pursuits as frequenting KTV parlors and chewing the seed of the betel palm. For some the term might be little but an ambiguous adjective, but for the local music industry the revamping of taike was a breath of fresh air.

It give them a chance to dig up earthy Taiwanese language tunes long considered crass from their extensive libraries and re-release and re-package them in a retro "taike is now hip" format.

Wu Bai is so taike.

The highlight of the "new taike" phenomenon was the sellout Taike Rock Concert (台客搖滾演唱會), which featured performances by a host of local stars including the 3 Shining Sisters (閃亮三姊妹), Wu Bai (伍佰), Joy Topper (豬頭皮), Jeff and Machi (黃立成 & 麻吉), Baboo, Chang Chen-yue (張震嶽) and MC Hotdog -- and was more akin to a variety show than a gig.

Paul van Dyk shows his mettle

Festival in the Square
(Oct. 21 through Nov. 6)
Spanning three weekends in bright, breezy October, the 17-day art festival 2005 Festival in the Square -- Arts Wonderland (中正紀念堂廣場) brought out the playful spirit of performing arts. Visitors roaming the CKS Square were not your usual members of the culturally savvy and sophisticated elites, but families and young people who were led by clowns and giant hens to savor the fun of street performances. Performing arts groups and artists from home and abroad took turns to stage a mixed bag of dances, plays, acrobatics, circus, music and visual arts in the tent theaters spread across the camping ground. The highlight of the festival was the Spanish band Macaco that performed a colorful fusion of latin groove, techno and hip hop.

Lin Liu-hsin Puppet Theater Museum opens
(Nov. 19)
This newspaper is sometimes criticized for reporting too much on traditional arts, but the folks at TTT Puppet Theatre themselves provide ample reason for doing so. Robin Ruizendaal and his company opened Taipei's most colorful new museum and, adjacent it, converted the shell of an old house into a new performance space that, in all its brick-walled, plastic-covered, aluminum-girded glory, houses amazing potential for performances of all kinds. Watch local arts listings for events at Nadou Theater and see for yourself.

Cloud Gate performs `Cursive'
(Nov. 19 through Nov. 27)
Lin Hwai-min's (林懷民) most impressive work to date, Cursive III, pared dance down to the essentials and assured Cloud Gate's position as the country's premier dance troupe and leading Asian company. Coming four years after choreographer Lin wowed audiences with Cursive, this year's twelve-movement piece, the finale in a trilogy, freed performers from set form dance.

Lin's latest work is based on kuang cao (狂草), or wild calligraphy, which liberates practitioners of the art form from pre-defined limitations and allows for abstract expression. The pace of Cursive I was fast and included martial arts kicks, the second in the trilogy slowed down the action and the final chapter oscillated between fast and very slow, which required great strength on the part of the dancers.

Paul van Dyk shows his mettle
(Dec. 10)
The world's most popular DJ is Paul van Dyk and he showed us why with a techno-trance music set that had Taipei's bright young things transfixed by the beat until five in the morning. He played on even though the sound system regularly crashed. Fortunately there were entertaining stage shows for these lulls -- techno-fetish actors on stilts, dancers, fire spinners -- and Van Dyk used them to rebuild his sound and crash back in again to big cheers when the volume returned. At the end the DJ box was decked in flowers presented by wowed fans.

There was nearly a riot at the Taipei World Trade Center 2 building before the gig started, however, as thousands tried to get tickets on the door for the sold-out event. Fortunately, it turned out to be a good-natured crowd and there was no serious trouble or arrests.

Pavarotti takes on Taichung
(Dec. 14)
Taichung out maneuvered Taipei in mid-December when it joined Buenos Aires, London, Paris and New York as one of only 40 cities worldwide lucky enough to have been chosen by Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarotti to host his farewell tour.

Having arrived in Taichung in his private 10-seater aircraft, the hugely popular opera star went to what he no doubt thought would be yet another drab press conference. An over zealous fan of the Italian tenor interrupted the maestro with a version of O Sole Mio, however, and then asked if Pavarotti would accept him as his student.

The singer, a Taiwanese national who had flown in from Canada to attend the concert, was ushered out of earshot of the famed tenor by event organizers within 30 seconds. Pavarotti kept his cool and didn't respond.

Unfazed by the events, Pavarotti took to the stage of Taichung Stadium (台中體育場) and burst into a set packed with both well-known and lesser-known operatic arias.

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