Mongolian sonic marvels such as khoomii, or throat singing, and morin khuur, the horse-headed fiddle, are no longer considered oddities on this subtropical island.
But there are variations in styles and practices among different regions and tribes of the Asian Steppe that, though mostly imperceptible to the untrained ear, mean that one troupe of throat singers from, say, Russia’s Tuvalu, is rather different than one from Mongolia or China’s Inner Mongolia — and thus, at least for fans of the art form, worth seeing.
Consider the Musical and Dramatic Theatre of Khovd Aimag, which tours Taiwan starting this week. The troupe specializes in the (in Taiwan) heretofore-unfamiliar sound of the Altai Mountains.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF COURTESY OF MONGOLIAN AND TIBETAN AFFAIRS COM
Seen as distant and remote even by Mongolian standards, the province of Khovd is located at the foot of Altai Mountains in the western part of the country, bordering on Xinjiang. The region is home to 13 tribes and its musical and while in a sense multicultural, its artistic traditions are said to have received less influence from the outside world because of its remote location.
When asked about the differences between throat singing in western Mongolia and China’s Inner Mongolia, Nanjid Sengedorj, the award-winning lead khoomii artist from an ensemble of 18 Khovd khoomii singers, bielgee dancers, and other musicians, said their region’s music evokes the beauty of the Altai Mountains.
Another art form from western Mongolia, bielgee is a kind of dance that dates back to the 13th century. With the emphasis on movements of the shoulders, hands, fingers, waist and legs, bielgee dancers portray the traditional life of western Mongolia, mimicking daily activities such as archery, wrestling and horse-riding.
The ensemble also showcases the tsuur, a hand-carved wooden flute. This traditional instrument is distinguished by a fast vibrating echoing sound.
“Imagine you are in the Altai. Hawks soar high above and hover over the mountains, which are capped with snow year-round. It is the sound of tsuur,” Nanjid Sengedorj said.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would