The Taipei leg of the Professional Dance Championship is set to sweep the city off its feet on Thursday
By Ho Yi
In an unpretentious dance studio on Minsheng East Road a couple of young ballroom dancers from Taichung practice their steps and poses. Veteran instructor and national champion Sammy Liu (劉順益) follows the pair's every move closely, prepping them for the upcoming world professional dance championships to be held at the Taipei Arena on Thursday.

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By Noah Buchan
Park benches often evoke images of tranquil afternoons and lovers on secret rendezvous, but in the hands of playwright Edward Albee, this innocuous image of urban America becomes a nightmare in which middle-class sensibilities are undermined.

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By Noah Buchan
Chinese people living in countries throughout Southeast Asia share the same cultural identity, but that doesn't necessarily translate into political identification with China.

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By Ho Yi
Edison Chen (陳冠希) broke cover yesterday to make his first public appearance since hundreds of sexually explicit photos surfaced on the Internet featuring the Canto-pop crooner and at least half a dozen female celebrities. [ FULL STORY ]

By Ron Brownlow
Rich Harper seems to have made a good impression in Thailand. The American blues-rock singer and guitarist has been invited to the Phuket Blues Festival for three straight years with his Los Angeles-based, three-piece, the Rich Harper Blues Band.

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By Ron Brownlow
Plastic People of the Universe, whose dark, lo-fi sound helped inspire a revolution against Communism in Czechoslovakia, returns to Taiwan for concerts this week in Taichung, Kaohsiung and Taipei. Band members will also take part in a conference on transitional justice organized by TRA Music in commemoration of the 228 Incident at the Eslite Bookstore's Xinyi branch (誠品信義店) in Taipei. The Plastics formed in 1968 after Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, crushing the country's liberalization movement.

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By Queen Bee
Ever wonder what Luxy would be like if the always-crowded main room and the side-room switched places? Wonder no more. On the third day of the Lunar New Year holiday, Kaskade, a true house DJ from San Francisco and one of the most illustrious deep house producers/remixers under the internationally-acclaimed US-based record label, Om Records, headlined. The turnout was unbelievable: 2,500 people filled the place to the brim.

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By Ian Bartholomew
Taipei is no stranger to food courts, but there are food courts, and there is Breeze Taipei Station, the future of inexpensive, choice-oriented, and lets face it, fun dining. This enterprise, launched last October by the same fashion and media savvy city slickers behind Breeze Center, has "high-concept" written all over it, and though you could satisfy yourself with donuts and coffee from Mister Donut for NT$80, you can also explore all kinds of weird and wonderful eats from tofu and chestnut ice cream (NT$58) from the Japanese Kofukudo (口福堂) to the beautifully presented vegetarian buffet offered by Minder Vegetarian (明德素食園), a favorite with traveling Buddhist clergy.

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By Ho Yi
Taiwanese businessman Li Hao-yang (李浩陽) enjoyed ganguo (干鍋), or dry pot, so much the first time he had it that he sought out an old chef in Yunnan Province to teach him how to make the fiery cuisine. Popular in southwest China, the dish evolved from the iron pots that the regions' villagers used to cook with over fire pits.

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