Dancing Diva (臺灣舞孃), dubbed “Taiwan’s first Broadway-style tourist spectacular,” premieres at Eda Royal Theater (義大皇家劇院) on Feb. 9 and runs for a total of 74 shows until April 28.
Eighteen months in the making, the ambitious, unprecedented show is the brainchild of noted advertising professional Jerry Fan (范可欽).
“I conceive it as Taiwan’s first Broadway show because a show needs to be industry and tourism oriented to run for years,” Fan told the Taipei Times in a phone interview.
Photo courtesy of Serina Liu and Zhai Xiaowei
“It’s done on a scale comparable to Phantom of the Opera.”
Conceived and written by Fan, the show features Taiwanese celebrity/dancing queen Serina Liu (劉真) in the title role and China’s acclaimed one-legged dancer Zhai Xiaowei (翟孝偉) as her confidante and reticent admirer.
The production is directed by Hsu Chieh-hui (許傑輝) and choreographed by Kent Chou (周志坤). Award-winning pop producer Eric Hung (洪敬堯) serves as music director, composing all the music, which includes three theme songs. The main theme song Love is the Most Beautiful Thing (愛是最美妙的事) is performed by pop songstress Freya Lim (林凡).
Dancing Diva tells the story of a beautiful Taiwanese pole dancer leaving the countryside to pursue her dreams in the big city. As she inches closer to her dream, her agent’s treachery shatters her plans, eventually leaving her with nothing. As the final competition for “Taiwan’s Got Talent” approaches, she realizes that her only dance partner is a one-legged clown who has been guarding her.
“There is an unspoken romance going on between the girl and the clown,” Fan said.
The show runs for 100 minutes, with eight thematic dance routines rendered with a distinct Taiwanese flair.
Liu will tackle modern ballet, pole dancing and silk rope dancing in addition to her trademark ballroom dancing. She will be backed by a 30-person dance troupe on ensemble dance numbers.
The production’s unprecedented NT$80 million budget will furnish it with the kind of visual and musical razzle-dazzle rarely seen on the stage in Taiwan. Fan has managed this production with two performing teams and plans to move the show to Macau later this year after it wraps up in Kaohsiung.
“I want the audiences to go home with a warm message,” said Fan. “There must be cracks in life for sunshine to seep through.”
June 2 to June 8 Taiwan’s woodcutters believe that if they see even one speck of red in their cooked rice, no matter how small, an accident is going to happen. Peng Chin-tian (彭錦田) swears that this has proven to be true at every stop during his decades-long career in the logging industry. Along with mining, timber harvesting was once considered the most dangerous profession in Taiwan. Not only were mishaps common during all stages of processing, it was difficult to transport the injured to get medical treatment. Many died during the arduous journey. Peng recounts some of his accidents in
“Why does Taiwan identity decline?”a group of researchers lead by University of Nevada political scientist Austin Wang (王宏恩) asked in a recent paper. After all, it is not difficult to explain the rise in Taiwanese identity after the early 1990s. But no model predicted its decline during the 2016-2018 period, they say. After testing various alternative explanations, Wang et al argue that the fall-off in Taiwanese identity during that period is related to voter hedging based on the performance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Since the DPP is perceived as the guardian of Taiwan identity, when it performs well,
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on May 18 held a rally in Taichung to mark the anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20. The title of the rally could be loosely translated to “May 18 recall fraudulent goods” (518退貨ㄌㄨㄚˋ!). Unlike in English, where the terms are the same, “recall” (退貨) in this context refers to product recalls due to damaged, defective or fraudulent merchandise, not the political recalls (罷免) currently dominating the headlines. I attended the rally to determine if the impression was correct that the TPP under party Chairman Huang Kuo-Chang (黃國昌) had little of a
At Computex 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) urged the government to subsidize AI. “All schools in Taiwan must integrate AI into their curricula,” he declared. A few months earlier, he said, “If I were a student today, I’d immediately start using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini Pro and Grok to learn, write and accelerate my thinking.” Huang sees the AI-bullet train leaving the station. And as one of its drivers, he’s worried about youth not getting on board — bad for their careers, and bad for his workforce. As a semiconductor supply-chain powerhouse and AI hub wannabe, Taiwan is seeing