Puppet masters in Taiwan are household names, but none more so than Li Tien-lu (李天祿), founder of the I-Wan-Jan (亦宛然掌中劇團) puppet troupe. Since his passing, the troupe has fallen out of the spotlight, but it has continued to work following the principles he laid down. The 2008 Taipei International Puppet Festival (第一屆大台北國際偶戲節), which will be held this weekend at the Taipei MRT’s Danshui Station (捷運淡水站) plaza, along with other smaller venues, aims to commemorate its founder and tell Taiwan that it has continued to preserve his legacy.
With Li’s encouragement and blessing, I-Wan-Jan spawned many splinter groups — and not only in Taiwan. Joining the commemorative activities will be Frenchman Jean-Luc Penso, founder of Theatre du Petit Miroir (法國小宛然), and Madeleine Beresford and Margaret Moody of the Galapagos Puppet Theater (美國如宛然) from the US, all of whom studied under Li, who was known for his extraordinary generosity to his students. “Unlike many Chinese masters, he never held anything back. He would give you as much as you could take away,” said Huang Chiao-wei (黃僑偉), who served as an apprentice in the troupe from age 10 and has now risen to become its artistic director and principle performer, which is now led by Li’s son Li Chuan-tsan (李傳燦).
In addition to the many splinter troupes that have been formed by former students of Li and his sons, other local groups have been invited. “We don’t want people to think we are keeping this event all to ourselves,” Huang said, acknowledging that Li’s heritage extends far beyond the “Wan-Jan” group of troupes. Sheng-Wu-Chou Puppet Troupe (台中聲五洲掌中劇團) and Ching-Hua-Ke Puppet Troupe (清華閣掌中劇團) will both be making an appearance, as will the Taiyuan Puppet Theater Company (台原偶戲團), whose principle performer is Li’s eldest son Chen Hsi-huang (陳錫煌). “It is unfortunate that we could not get more local troupes to participate, but this is a busy season and they have many commitments,” Huang said, adding with a wry smile, “and the financial issues are easier to resolve with the ‘Wan-Jan’ troupes.” Two groups from China that had accepted invitations to perform failed to get visas for the trip.
I-Wan-Jan is the only puppet troupe in Taiwan to have broken away from a traditional family-based model. “We are trying to become more like a modern organization,” Huang said. This involves the very unartistic tasks of training people to do administrative work. “If you can produce a good proposal that the government likes, you are more likely to get grants or subsidies. It’s as simple as that,” he said, recognizing that the government is a crucial paymaster if the art is to survive.
On the artistic side, Li established a very solid foundation of skills within the troupe. “The one thing he didn’t do — carving puppet heads — he made his sons go off and learn,” Huang said. As a result of Li’s insistence on commanding all the skills necessary to his art, I-Wan-Jan has been able to produce both traditional and innovative works that retain a high level of quality. “We carve our own puppets, make the costumes ourselves and also have our own orchestra,” Huang said. “This is naturally a considerable outlay, but it means we can tailor everything exactly.”
Another aspect of Li’s heritage is his emphasis on education, which is the reason why so many “Wan-Jan” troupes have been established. In the 1970s Li pulled back from life as a full-time professional performer to focus on teaching. He took in many disciples, rejecting the exclusivity of the family. “He always saw the success of his students as something to be proud of,” Huang said.
The gathering at Danshui this weekend is a testament to his achievements, as his disciples come together to pay him respect. “When he died, many people said that I-Wan-Jan wouldn’t survive,” Huang said. “We have spent time looking inward, working on transmitting fundamentals … In a sense, the incredible achievements of Li Tien-lu have made I-Wan-Jan seem less significant.” With the hosting of the 2008 Taipei International Puppetry Festival, I-Wan-Jan may be coming out of its founder’s shadow.
Taiwan has next to no political engagement in Myanmar, either with the ruling military junta nor the dozens of armed groups who’ve in the last five years taken over around two-thirds of the nation’s territory in a sprawling, patchwork civil war. But early last month, the leader of one relatively minor Burmese revolutionary faction, General Nerdah Bomya, who is also an alleged war criminal, made a low key visit to Taipei, where he met with a member of President William Lai’s (賴清德) staff, a retired Taiwanese military official and several academics. “I feel like Taiwan is a good example of
March 2 to March 8 Gunfire rang out along the shore of the frontline island of Lieyu (烈嶼) on a foggy afternoon on March 7, 1987. By the time it was over, about 20 unarmed Vietnamese refugees — men, women, elderly and children — were dead. They were hastily buried, followed by decades of silence. Months later, opposition politicians and journalists tried to uncover what had happened, but conflicting accounts only deepened the confusion. One version suggested that government troops had mistakenly killed their own operatives attempting to return home from Vietnam. The military maintained that the
Before the last section of the round-the-island railway was electrified, one old blue train still chugged back and forth between Pingtung County’s Fangliao (枋寮) and Taitung (台東) stations once a day. It was so slow, was so hot (it had no air conditioning) and covered such a short distance, that the low fare still failed to attract many riders. This relic of the past was finally retired when the South Link Line was fully electrified on Dec. 23, 2020. A wave of nostalgia surrounded the termination of the Ordinary Train service, as these train carriages had been in use for decades
Lori Sepich smoked for years and sometimes skipped taking her blood pressure medicine. But she never thought she’d have a heart attack. The possibility “just wasn’t registering with me,” said the 64-year-old from Memphis, Tennessee, who suffered two of them 13 years apart. She’s far from alone. More than 60 million women in the US live with cardiovascular disease, which includes heart disease as well as stroke, heart failure and atrial fibrillation. And despite the myth that heart attacks mostly strike men, women are vulnerable too. Overall in the US, 1 in 5 women dies of cardiovascular disease each year, 37,000 of them
RSS