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)
PHOTOS: TAIPEI TIMES AND AGENCIES
Songstress Samingad (
Formoz Festival socks it to rockers!
(July 29 through July 31)
The Formoz Festival (
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.
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' 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.
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.
`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.
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.
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 (
Lin's latest work is based on kuang cao (
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.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not