The economic downturn has hurt many industries and the arts are no exception. Recent performances by local and international artists, including Klaus Obermaier’s Apparition II at the National Theater and Novel Hall Dance 2009 series, have been noticeably emptier than they would have been last year. Discounts are hard to come by unless you are a student, in the military, a senior citizen or have at least 19 friends who all want to see the same show.
The folks putting together the 11th annual Taipei Arts Festival, which opens Aug. 12 and runs through Sept. 9, are hoping to avoid empty seats by offering an “Early Bird Special” through June 7 of 25 percent off regular tickets, except for the lowest-priced seats for each show.
For those who can plan ahead, this is a great deal because the lineup for the festival includes both local and international theater companies, dance troupes and musicians such as LAFA & Artists, Teatr Biuro Podrozy from Poland, Schauspielhaus Zurich and a joint production by the Taipei Chinese Orchestra and Cloud Gate 2. There will also be several free lectures (in Chinese) and shows as well, plus pre- or after-show discussions. The shows will be held at venues around Taipei, including Metropolitan Hall, Novel Hall and Zhongshan Hall.
After June 8, Taipei Arts Festival is offering 20-percent discounts on ticket packages to members of Friends of the Taipei Arts Festival and 10-percent discounts will also be offered to those who are members of Friends of the Taipei Culture Foundation, Friends of the National Theater and Concert Hall (NTCH), students or senior citizens or those paying for tickets with a Visa credit card.
More information about the festival and the various ticket offers can be found on the festival’s Web site (www.taipeifestival.org), which has information in Chinese and English. As of press time, however, the English-language page for joining the Friends of the Taipei Arts Festival was not available.
For fans of Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) and Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集), September will offer a rare chance to see all three works in Lin’s Cursive series at the National Theater over three weeks beginning Sept. 6. If you act fast — the offer expires on tomorrow — there is a 20-percent discount on a package of either NT$1,600 or NT$2,000 tickets for all three productions for members of Friends of Cloud Gate or Friends of NTCH. Details can be found (in Chinese only) on the Web sites of the organizations: www.cloudgate.org.tw or www.artsticket.com.tw (for NTCH).
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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