The ongoing Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival (高雄春天藝術節) takes pride in its endeavor to become a comprehensive event catering to everyone.
The annual event has positioned itself as southern Taiwan’s cultural extravaganza, with more than 30 productions and some 80 performances across seven venues over six months.
Among this weekend’s lineup, internationally acclaimed violinist Vadim Repin will team up with Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra (高雄市交響樂團) to perform works by Gustav Mahler and Dmitri Shostakovich on Sunday.
Photo courtesy of Harald Hoffmann and Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival
For those with a soft spot for Taiwanese gezai opera (歌仔戲), Shiukim Taiwanese Opera Troupe (秀琴歌劇團) will perform Beggar Su (蘇乞兒), which tells the life of Su Tsan (蘇燦), a legendary martial artist during Qing Dynasty.
There are plenty more to see before the festival ends on July 9. Highlights include a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, featuring Russian tenor Andrei Dunaev and Romanian soprano Valentina Farcas. It is a collaboration between Kaohsiung Chamber Choir (高雄市內合唱團) and Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra conducted by Chien Wen-pin (簡文彬).
■ Ticket prices vary depending on performances. For a complete listing of the festival’s programs, related events, ticket packages and other information, go to the festival’s Web site (English and Chinese) at www.ksaf.com.tw.
Photo courtesy of Harald Hoffmann and Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival
Photo courtesy of Harald Hoffmann and Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby