ARock 'n' Roll Circus, a traveling art and music event, arrives in Ximending (西門町) tonight, promising music, art and burlesque entertainment.
On the music side, Taiwan-based garage rock outfit The Deadly Vibes will showcase rock tunes that have a country twist. Go Chic and To a God Unknown will also perform at the Taipei gig. Militant Hippi and .22 and will open the show in Taichung with funk, hip-hop and reggae beats.
As for art, an exhibition of paintings, photography and videos by local artists will be on display.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF LUSTSLUTS BURLESQUE
A rarely seen burlesque show by Lustsluts Burlesque, an expat performing art troupe founded by six English teachers in Hualien last year is also in the lineup.
True to the original burlesque spirit, the company incorporates a wide range of performance styles including comedy, satire, striptease and cabaret. The group performed at Spring Scream and a small venue in Luotung Township (羅東) last year. Though the troupe's shows are open to all, no Taiwanese have yet appeared in the audience. "Burlesque is a bit sexy and you can't really force people to do it," troupe member Sarah Joy Walker said.
The group only performs outside Hualien, since as English teachers they also have a certain image to uphold.
"We feel nervous that our performances may cause misunderstandings. People may think 'oh, you are strippers,'" Walker said.
Judging from the warm reception they received for their shows in Kaohsiung and Tainan last weekend, the Lustsluts may be worrying too much. To use Walker's account of the scene, the initial shock on people's face soon changed to thundering laughs and ended with wild acts that involved tequila shots and wet bras.
For exhibitionist-oriented members of the audience, a lip sync contest is a good excuse to dress up, pick a song and go crazy onstage.
Remember to dust off your leather pants: Discounted tickets are available for attendees attired in rock 'n' roll garb.
May 11 to May 17 Traversing the southern slopes of the Yushan Range in 1931, Japanese naturalist Tadao Kano knew he was approaching the last swath of Taiwan still beyond colonial control. The “vast, unknown territory,” protected by the “fierce” Bunun headman Dahu Ali, was “filled with an utterly endless jungle that choked the mountains and valleys,” Kano wrote. He noted how the group had “refused to submit to the measures of our authorities and entrenched themselves deep in these mountains … living a free existence spent chasing deer in the morning and seeking serow in the evening,” even describing them as
Yesterday, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominated legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) as their Taipei mayoral candidate, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) put their stamp of approval on Wei Ping-cheng (魏平政) as their candidate for Changhua County commissioner and former legislator Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has begun the process to also run in Changhua, though she has not yet been formally nominated. All three news items are bizarre. The DPP has struggled with settling on a Taipei nominee. The only candidate who declared interest was Enoch Wu (吳怡農), but the party seemed determined to nominate anyone
In a sudden move last week, opposition lawmakers of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) passed a NT$780 billion special defense budget as a preemptive measure to stop either Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) or US President Donald Trump from blocking US arms sales to Taiwan at their summit in Beijing, said KMT heavyweight Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), speaking to the Taipei Foreign Correspondents Club on Wednesday night in Taipei. The 76-year-old Jaw, a political talk show host who ran as the KMT’s vice presidential candidate in 2024, says that he personally brokered the deal to resolve
What government project has expropriated the most land in Taiwan? According to local media reports, it is the Taoyuan Aerotropolis, eating 2,500 hectares of land in its first phase, with more to come. Forty thousand people are expected to be displaced by the project. Naturally that enormous land grab is generating powerful pushback. Last week Chen Chien-ho (陳健和), a local resident of Jhuwei Borough (竹圍) in Taoyuan City’s Dayuan District (大園) filed a petition for constitutional review of the project after losing his case at the Taipei Administrative Court. The Administrative Court found in favor of nine other local landowners, but