Three men walk into a stadium — and learn to be rock stars, all in one evening.
That’s the basic story line behind the Blue Man Group’s Megastar World Tour, which runs until Sunday as part of the 2009 Deaflympics’ arts program. The musical theater troupe arrived in Taipei earlier this week and held an extra performance on Thursday afternoon, donating all ticket sales to the Red Cross for the victims of Typhoon Morakot.
The Blue Man Group, which features three bald and mute men covered in blue paint and dressed in black, has become a global franchise, with permanent shows running in Las Vegas, Berlin and Tokyo. They gained wider fame for their appearances in a series of Intel advertisements, and a tour with Moby inspired the group to step onto larger stages.
This weekend’s performances take place in a setting suited for a megastar — the 10,000-seat Taipei Arena (台北小巨蛋), but the Blue Man’s core character is still drawn from the group’s roots as street performers in New York.
“The Blue Man just shows up some place and spends the next hour and a half trying to figure out what’s going on,” said Blue Man Group Director and performer Brian Scott, after a press conference in Taipei earlier this week.
“So with the Megastar tour, it’s the Blue Man unwittingly thrust into the world of rock stars, but he doesn’t really know what this rock ’n’ roll business is really all about, because the Blue Man character is not a rock star.”
The show both satirizes and celebrates the rock ’n’ roll concert experience. The Blue Men, innocent and curious by nature, stumble upon a “how-to manual” that teaches them the basics of being a rock star. They go step by step through the manual, which includes clinical instructions on how to gyrate their hips and lip-sync.
While the Blue Men draw laughter with their awkward attempts at becoming rockers, they impress audiences with their musicality. Backed by a five-piece band, the Blue Men pound out rousing, hypnotic rhythms on a variety of specially designed percussion instruments: PVC pipes, drums that spit out paint, and an old grand piano that’s flipped on its side with the mallets exposed and is struck like a bass drum.
“There’s an aesthetic to the music that’s tribal. It’s very tribal but it has a modern vibe to it,” said Scott.
And even though the group’s Megastar show, its only touring performance, has a tighter script than its small theater shows, Scott says there will be some room for the Blue Men to engage in playful interaction with the audience.
Their quest to become rock gods often falls into parody, but at the end the Megastar show still carries all the elements of a great rock concert, said Scott. “It’s a good vibe, it’s the kind of thing that makes feel people feel closer.”
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
On April 17, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) launched a bold campaign to revive and revitalize the KMT base by calling for an impromptu rally at the Taipei prosecutor’s offices to protest recent arrests of KMT recall campaigners over allegations of forgery and fraud involving signatures of dead voters. The protest had no time to apply for permits and was illegal, but that played into the sense of opposition grievance at alleged weaponization of the judiciary by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to “annihilate” the opposition parties. Blamed for faltering recall campaigns and faced with a KMT chair
Article 2 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) stipulates that upon a vote of no confidence in the premier, the president can dissolve the legislature within 10 days. If the legislature is dissolved, a new legislative election must be held within 60 days, and the legislators’ terms will then be reckoned from that election. Two weeks ago Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed that the legislature hold a vote of no confidence in the premier and dare the president to dissolve the legislature. The legislature is currently controlled
RSS