Hong Kong is calling, and in full artistic force. Today marks the beginning of Hong Kong Week 2012 — Culture and Creativity@Taipei (香港周2012 — 文化創意@台北), which is a program of shows from dozens of musicians, actors, dancers and filmmakers from the former British colony. Performances and shows take place at venues across Taipei until Dec. 2.
The event was created by the Hong Kong-Taiwan Cultural Co-operation Committee, a group devoted to promoting arts and culture exchanges between Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The purpose of this first edition of Hong Kong Week is “to show Taiwanese audiences what Hong Kong is doing in terms of cultural and creative development,” said Heidi Liu (廖珮賢) of the Hong Kong Economic, Trade and Cultural Office in Taipei, one of the event co-organizers.
Photos courtesy of Hong Kong Economic, Trade and Cultural Office
In other words, the event is a chance for Hong Kongophiles to get their fill.
The opening program kicks off tonight with the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre’s I Have a Date with Autumn (我和秋天有個約會). The production is a follow-up to the theatre’s popular and award-winning play I Have a Date with Spring (我和春天有個約會), which is about an unknown nightclub singer who, by a twist of fate, is propelled to stardom in the late 1960s. The show, in Cantonese with Mandarin subtitles takes place tonight, tomorrow and Sunday at Novel Hall for Performing Arts.
Modern multimedia comes together with ancient Chinese history in 1587, A Year of No Significance (萬曆十 五年), a play performed by experimental theatre group Zuni Icosahedron. The play, set in 1587, is based on a book on the decline of the Ming Dynasty by the historian Ray Huang (黃仁宇). The show, in Cantonese with Mandarin subtitles, takes place at the Taiwan Cement Building’s Cement Hall (台泥士敏廳) tonight, tomorrow and Sunday.
Photo courtesy of Hong Kong Economic, Trade and Cultural Office
Music plays prominently in the program — the closing show on Dec. 2 is a performance by the well-reputed Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra at Zhongshan Hall (中山堂). Fans of jazz and world music might be interested in Collision, which features jazz fusion band SIU2, which uses traditional Chinese instruments along with conventional jazz instruments, and will be joined by another HKCO4U, the youth branch of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. They perform at Legacy tonight and tomorrow.
Taiwanese artists are also part of Hong Kong Week. Let’s Swing Taipei sees two jazz orchestras, one from Hong Kong, the other from Taipei, performing together (see Live Wire, Page 11). Two star Taiwanese pop figures, Waa Wei (魏如萱) and Wu Bai (伍佰) will make guest appearances as part of Gen S, a showcase of both up-and-coming and well-known singer-songwriters, including Hong Kong rock musician and guitar maven Paul Wong (黃貫中) and his band The Postman. These shows take place at Legacy on Monday and Tuesday (See Contemporary Listings, page 11, for details).
Modern dance enthusiasts have the Hong Kong-Taipei Dance Exchange, with some 50 dancers and choreographers teaming up for an interactive, “environmental” performance at the Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Research Institute/Rose Historic Site (蔡瑞月舞蹈社). This event takes place on Dec. 1. Jumping Frames is modern dance in video form, with screenings taking place at Eslite Bookstore’s Xinyi Branch (誠品信義店) on Dec. 1 and Dec. 2.
Photo courtesy of Hong Kong Economic, Trade and Cultural Office
For film buffs, there’s the Hong Kong Contemporary Film Showcase, which takes place from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1 at Cinema 7 (絕色影城) in Ximending. And comics fans might be interested to see Kaleidoscope — History of Hong Kong Comics Exhibition, which features animation shorts and panel discussions between Hong Kong and Taiwanese artists. The exhibition is on at Chung Shan Creative Hub (中山創意基地URS21) from today until Dec. 8.
For more information and a full schedule with times and ticket prices is available at www.hongkongweek2012taipei.hk. A downloadable PDF program in English is available under the “Programmes” page.
Photo courtesy of Hong Kong Economic, Trade and Cultural Office
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not