Atash's mission is to bring happiness into people's lives. The band has already left a trail of blissed-out concertgoers across Taiwan
By Ron Brownlow
When Mohammad Firoozi sings, people dance. Maybe not by moving their feet, but definitely inside their minds. Trained as a boy in Iran to sing the Muslim call to prayer, Firoozi's voice conjures images of whirling dervishes and the poems of great Sufi mystics. Combined with the syncopated hand drums, dueling violins, jazz bass and flamenco guitar of his World Music ensemble Atash, his lyrics create a spiritual groove that shoots listeners back in time and rockets them into a different dimension.

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`Tilt' makes metaphors for modern life
By Diane Baker
Cultural identity, culture clashes and gender stereotyping have been fertile ground for dramatists, filmmakers and other artists for generations. These are also subjects that have long intrigued Taiwanese dancer/choreographer Lin Hsiang-hsiu (林向秀), the founder and artistic director of the five-year old Lin HH Dance Company (林向秀舞團).

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By Noah Buchan
When Gustav Flaubert was asked who is Madam Bovary, he replied, "Madame Bovary is Me," because, like the novel's heroine, he too felt like an outsider in French society. Those words spoken by Flaubert over 150 years ago have now become the title of Edward Lam's (林奕華) new play, which will be performed at the Eslite Theater on the sixth floor of the company's flagship store close to Taipei 101 beginning today.

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By Ron Brownlow
This is American fried rice," said US Department of Agriculture representative Keith Schneller in American-accented Mandarin, as he passed out portions of jambalaya for a group of chefs at the Taipei Vocational Cooking School on Wednesday. The occasion: a Cajun cooking class conducted by Louisiana culinary guru Roy Lyons. The word Cajun refers to a part of the southern US settled by French-speakers, as well as their culture and food. Jambalya, which is not fried, is named after the French word for "ham" and an African word meaning "rice." Several Taipei restaurants such as Malibu West and the Cosmopolitan Grill already serve Cajun food — there's even a New Orleans Kitchen on Roosevelt Road across from National Taiwan University. But this was the first opportunity most of the assembled chefs had to see how it's really done.

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By Jules Quartly
IS Spring Scream (春天吶喊) on steroids? The Kenting (墾丁) festival keeps getting bigger. The number of parties, bands and fans increases annually. As does the number of people caught for illegal possession of drugs. This year it was a record high of 120 people. Coincidence? Pop Stop thinks not and suggests if it wasn't for the large amount of recreational medicines available fewer people would be interested in the event. They would not be attracted by the yearly media blitz promising sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll and stop going. Eventually, fewer artists would turn up and the festival would become what it originally started out as: a small, underground music event on the beach with a few spliffs being handed round.

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By Marcus Aurelius
Thirteen years ago, Jimi Moe and Wade Davis splashed down in Kenting with a small live music festival, Spring Scream, that quickly soared in popularity. A half dozen years or so later, rave parties sprung up and eclipsed the live music festival in both attendance and newsworthiness. This year, Spring Scream reinvented itself, lapped the others, and roared back to pole position once again.

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By Ho Yi
For the past week members of Taiwan Haibizi (台灣海筆子) have worked, dinned and slept in a tent on Tongan Street preparing for tonight's premiere of the group's new play Metamorphosis — City of Crust (變幻 — 痂殼城).

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Peter O'Toole and Leslie Phillips turn in endearing performances as pill popping, boozing old thespians whose lives are turned upside down by the appearance of a seductive young lass
By A.O. Scott
Roger Michell and Hanif Kureishi, the director and screenwriter of Venus, are both in their early 50s and, as far as I know, young in mind, body and spirit. Nonetheless in this film and their last collaboration, The Mother, they unblinkingly examine the effects of old age. Not coincidentally they provide their leading actors — Anne Reid in The Mother, Peter O'Toole in Venus — with rare opportunities to show how complicated, how impetuous, how alive older people can be.

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By Stephen Holden
Archetypes and symbols solemnly parade through Seraphim Falls, a handsome, old-fashioned western of few words and heavy meanings that unfolds with the sanctimonious grandeur of a biblical allegory. In this drama of pursuit, revenge and forgiveness, set in 1868, Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson are soldiers who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War and are now engaged in a life-and-death chase that takes them from the Ruby Mountains of Nevada to a final showdown in the desert.

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`Epic Movie' is not very epic, but it is littered with scatological humor
By A.O. Scott
I can't say that I was surprised to learn that Epic Movie would not be screened in advance for critics, but I must say that my feelings were a little bit hurt. A crude, scatological parody of a handful of big-budget, inexplicably popular movies from the past two years — what would be more likely to warm a critic's withered, cynical heart?

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`Perfect Stranger' should come with a boredom warning: it's a connect-the-dots thriller that fails to excite, thrill or titillate
By Glenn Whipp
A psychological thriller in which both the psychology and the thrills are in short supply, Perfect Stranger has been trying to pass itself off as a sexy piece of intrigue in its advertising — though, again, the sex and the intrigue are nowhere to be found.

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First there was the furor over their capture. Then the backlash when they were released. But no drama is ever complete without an accompanying movie, and Wednesday Iran beat Hollywood to the mark by pledging to recount the entire 13-day affair of the recently released British naval captives in a film.

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By Ho Yi
ADDRESS: 11, Alley 27, Ln 216, Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 4, Taipei (台北市忠孝東路四段216巷27弄11號)
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By Jules Quartly
ADDRESS: 149 Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei (台北市敦化南路一段149號) [ FULL STORY ]

Theater [ FULL STORY ]