The National Place Museum's (NPM, 國立故宮博物院) reopening celebrations reflect the world-famous repository of Chinese treasures' new priority: to become a living cultural center.
In accordance with its new ethos, NPM is holding an art fair featuring handicrafts and innovative designs by local artists drawing inspiration from Sung Dynasty art and an outdoor festival with performances by Ming Hwa Yuan Taiwanese Opera Troupe (明華園戲劇團), Ju Percussion Group (朱宗慶打擊樂團) and U Theater (優劇場) this weekend and next.
Envisaged as a futuristic museum that embraces technology, NPM has digitized archives and constructed an e-learning Web site to reach out to a global audience and facilitate academic exchanges. Through the utilization of digital technologies, ancient objects have been given a new lease on life.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NPM
Under the leadership of the museum's first female director, Lin Man-li (林曼麗), NPM will invite guest curators to give fresh perspectives on its vast collection of Chinese treasures.
As a forward thinking veteran art professional, Lin has initiated the "Old is New" project that has seen NPM collaborate with local design teams and international design brands such as Alessi to modernize the museum's image. The online museum store opened last year, and is an ambitious project to market the NPM as a brand, sell replicas and create added value to its vast unexplored treasures.
With the multimedia learning area, renovated film screening facility, spacious gift store and the adjacent three-floor building that houses restaurants and is scheduled to open by the end of the year, NPM has made fast progress towards making distant history relevant to contemporary life.
First kicked off by Japan's highly regarded Noh theater group last weekend, NPM's series of outdoor performance highlights the concept of "Old is New" by featuring local performing groups that fuse the traditional with contemporary aesthetics. Ming Hwa Yuan Taiwanese Opera Troupe, Ju Percussion Group and U Theater will perform tonight, tomorrow and Sunday, respectively.
The 70-year-old Ming Hwa Yuan troupe will feature stage and lighting designs in the form of popular open air theater (野台戲) and present its bold new piece about a junior high student who travels back to the Ming Dynasty in a time machine and helps the dynasty's founder, Chu Yuan-chang (朱元璋), forge his empire.
Taiwan's foremost percussion ensemble Ju Percussion Group's line-up blends world music with a local flavor. Song of Guatamala and Latin Rhapsody are a musical journey from Africa to South America; percussion instruments from the East and West will be played together in Welcome the New Year while The Happy Dining Car is a battle between musical instruments and household utensils. The ensemble will also feature its classic works such as Masks in which masked taiko drummers strike out dramatic beats accompanied by marimba players.
The acclaimed U Theater will demonstrate the rigorous training its members follow and their artistry in meditation, martial arts, drumming and modern theater. Sunday's featured masterpieces include The Great Lion's Roar, a story about a warrior's quest for wisdom and bravery during the journey to a mountain peak.
Each group will hold discussions and demonstration sessions prior to performances from 4:30pm to 5:30pm each day.
For visitors who would like to relish the celebrated exhibitions at a leisurely pace, NPM is extending its opening time until 8:30pm today, tomorrow and on Feb. 16 and Feb. 23 and will look into the possibility of staying open later permanently if the move is well received.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s