Politicians are always promising to turn Taiwan into a “Silicon Valley of the Pacific,” a regional transshipment hub, a regional financial center, an ornamental fish aquaculture center ... the list is endless.
The people at the National Chiang Kai-shek Cultural Center have an equally lofty ambition. They want to establish their National Theater and Concert Hall (NTCH) complex as one of the pre-eminent art centers in Asia, with an annual arts festival that will rival the more established ones in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Unlike the politicians, however, the staff at center appear to have a clear vision of the future and what it will take to achieve their goal. They began laying the groundwork for it with their festival last spring. Next year’s program is even more ambitious.
The 2010 International Festival was put together under the theme of “Diversity and Sustainability,” with the twin aims of promoting a variety of cultures and focusing on the environment. For five weeks, beginning on Feb. 19 and ending on March 28, the NTCH complex will be filled with performances most weekends in the main theater and concert hall, the smaller theaters and the outdoor plaza, by companies and artists from Spain, Colombia, Denmark and Germany, France and Taiwan. There will be six world premieres, including two flagship productions sponsored by TPAC, and six Asian premieres.
There is plenty to choose from, whether you enjoy music, dance or the theater. The fun starts with two free outdoor performances, the first by the Sol Pico Dance Company on Feb. 19 and the second, on the following day, by The Formosa Aboriginal Song and Dance Troupe. The Spaniards will perform their mermaid-on-a-mission tale, Sirena a la Plancha, which is a multimedia mixture of theater, dance and puppetry.
Famed American director Robert Wilson will be back in late February — a little over a year to the day that his Orlando with Wei Hai-min (魏海敏) opened at the National Theater — with a new production/collaboration with U-Theatre (優人神鼓) titled 1433 — The Grand Voyage. Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) has created a new work for his Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集) called Listening to the River.
Academy Award-winner Tan Dun (譚盾) will conduct the National Symphony Orchestra and the Taiwan National Chinese Orchestra in a performance of his score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍). British composer George Fenton will conduct the National Symphony Orchestra on an exploration of the world with his score from The Blue Planet documentary series, for which he won an Emmy and a BAFTA.
The festival has a strong feminine streak, at least for its theater and dance productions. Ilan County-born dancer-choreographer Lin Mei-hong (林美虹) returns to Taiwan with the Tanztheater des Staatstheaters Darmstadt, at which she has been director since 2005. The company will perform Lin’s Violett, Lila, PurPur, which combines Taiwanese music and literature. Angelin Preljocaj is bringing his eponymous company, Ballet Preljocaj, and their production of Snow White. Several of the theater pieces are collaborations between the Magdalena Project — which was formed in 1986 by 38 artists from 15 countries to promote female artists and theater — and theater companies, including the Odin Teatret from Denmark, Germany’s Theater Unikate and Teatro la Candelaria from Colombia.
In addition to the performances, there will be pre-show talks in the National Theater lobby a half-hour before each performance of 1433 — The Grand Voyage, Hamlet, Snow White and Violett, Lila, PurPur, while over in the Concert Hall lobby there will be a talk half-hour before On the Road, Drum Beat, Heart Beat! and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
There will also be after-performance talks by Angelin Preljocaj, the choreographer of Snow White, on March 6, Patricia Ariza, the director of Emily Dickonson, on March 14, Roberta Carreri and Eugenio Barba, the performers in Salt, on March 21, Gilla Cremer, the actress in M.E.D.E.A., on March 28, and Thomas Ostermeier, director of Hamlet, on March 28.
Tickets for the festival went on sale last month and there are several discount and subscription offers available. Friends of the NTCH can get the usual 10 percent discount, while students are entitled to 20 percent off. When buying subscription tickets, you must purchase the same number of tickets for each of the shows you choose. However, if you buy tickets to more than five shows, there is a 25 percent discount, and for more than eight shows, the discount is 34 percent. There is a limited subscription offer (100) of a 50 percent discount if you buy tickets to more than 10 of the shows.
Tickets can be purchased at the NTCH box office, online at www.artstickets.com.tw, by phone at (02) 3393-9888, at 7-Eleven iBon kiosks or through Hi-Life’s (萊爾富) Life-ET ticketing service.
While the festival is still more two months away, and given that there will be just one performance of some of the music productions, while on some weekends, especially in March, there will be three productions, it’s worth planning ahead, whether you are interested in just one or two companies or want to see more.
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