Scheduling problems have kept the Kaohsiung City Ballet (KCB, 高雄城市芭蕾舞團) from making its almost annual pilgrimage north to Taipei with its Dance Shoe (點子鞋) production, which is a loss for Taipei ballet fans, given the caliber of last year’s show.
Company founder Chang Hsiu-ru (張秀如) could not get her troupe into the Experimental Theater before the venue closed for its annual Lunar New Year renovation and clean-up period, and so had to settle for two-city tour.
KCB premiered this year’s Dance Shoe in Greater Tainan two weekends ago and this weekend it returns to its “home theater,” Chihteh Hall at the Kaohsiung Cultural Center, for two shows.
Photo Courtesy of Liu Ren-haur
This 12th version of Dance Shoe features works by four Taiwanese choreographers and one foreign freelancer, all of whom will be familiar names for the company’s fans.
The local choreographers, in keeping with Chang’s desire to showcase southern talent, are either all from southern Taiwan or now work there.
Tsai Po-chen (蔡博丞), who has had pieces in several earlier shows, created the stellar Little Star (小小星辰) last year, while Wang Wei-ming (王維銘), a former Cloud Gate dancer who now teaches at Shu-Te University in Greater Kaohsiung, had a piece in last year and in 2013. Lai Hung-chung (賴翃中) and Dai Ting-ru (戴鼎如), a dancer with the company who is now working on a graduate degree in Taipei, have also contributed in the past.
Photo Courtesy of Liu Ren-haur
Chang hired Romanian dancer-choreographer-videographer Constantin Georgescu to restage the full-length ballet Coppelia (柯碧莉亞) for the company to perform in the Kaohsiung Spring Festival last year and her dancers responded well to the challenge. For this year’s Dance Shoe he has created a work titled Ladies and Fans.
The chance to work with such a variety of choreographers provides valuable experience for Chang’s dancers as well as providing dance audiences a chance to see a combination of modern and classical technique in one setting.
While some dance fans, this reviewer included, are heading south this weekend to see the shows, Chang and the KCB will hopefully be able to return to Taipei with next year’s Dance Shoe.
Photo Courtesy of Liu Ren-haur
Photo Courtesy of Liu Ren-haur
One of the biggest sore spots in Taiwan’s historical friendship with the US came in 1979 when US president Jimmy Carter broke off formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan’s Republic of China (ROC) government so that the US could establish relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Taiwan’s derecognition came purely at China’s insistence, and the US took the deal. Retired American diplomat John Tkacik, who for almost decade surrounding that schism, from 1974 to 1982, worked in embassies in Taipei and Beijing and at the Taiwan Desk in Washington DC, recently argued in the Taipei Times that “President Carter’s derecognition
This year will go down in the history books. Taiwan faces enormous turmoil and uncertainty in the coming months. Which political parties are in a good position to handle big changes? All of the main parties are beset with challenges. Taking stock, this column examined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) (“Huang Kuo-chang’s choking the life out of the TPP,” May 28, page 12), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (“Challenges amid choppy waters for the DPP,” June 14, page 12) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (“KMT struggles to seize opportunities as ‘interesting times’ loom,” June 20, page 11). Times like these can
June 23 to June 29 After capturing the walled city of Hsinchu on June 22, 1895, the Japanese hoped to quickly push south and seize control of Taiwan’s entire west coast — but their advance was stalled for more than a month. Not only did local Hakka fighters continue to cause them headaches, resistance forces even attempted to retake the city three times. “We had planned to occupy Anping (Tainan) and Takao (Kaohsiung) as soon as possible, but ever since we took Hsinchu, nearby bandits proclaiming to be ‘righteous people’ (義民) have been destroying train tracks and electrical cables, and gathering in villages
Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8). Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any
RSS