The Russian Festival Ballet must be one of the most-traveled dance troupes in the world, having appeared in more than 50 countries. They always seem to be on the road and have visited Taiwan more than a dozen times in the past few years. Since Taipei lacks a resident professional ballet company of its own, the Russian Festival troupe could be considered the next best thing.
They are back in town this weekend to perform their crowd-pleasing troika of Sleeping Beauty (tonight), Swan Lake (tomorrow) and The Nutcracker (Sunday). However, unlike previous tours that took them to Hsinchu and points further south, this visit is strictly for Taipei audiences.
The company, now 19 years old, was formed by Timour Fayziev, a former premier danseur-turned-choreographer, with the aim of presenting the traditional romantic classics. The company’s repertoire may not be as broad as other troupes — it sticks to the same nine ballets — but Fayziev’s focus was on quality over quantity.
He took advantage of the collapse of the Soviet dance system to fill his company with graduates of the Bolshoi and Stanislavski schools who were well-schooled in classic Russian techniques and style. He has also had his pick of winners of international ballet competitions. The company is now almost 60 members strong, which allows him to have two to three traveling groups at any one time.
One of his company’s strengths is its corps de ballet, a must for turning pieces such as Swan Lake or Giselle into mesmerizing spectacles. Principal dancers may grab the spotlight, but nothing detracts from watching Swan Lake more than seeing a ragged lines of cygnets clomp onto the stage. It was often painful to watch the American Ballet Theater’s productions years ago, despite such stellar performers as Cynthia Gregory or Natalia Markova, because ABT’s corp de ballet was made up of women coming from a variety of schools and lacking a unity of style, much less of timing.
You may not know or remember the names of the Russian Festival Ballet’s stars, but you will remember the company’s performances.
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