Young dancers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and China will take center stage and share the spotlight when the first International Children’s Dance Festival opens in Taipei today.
Lidia Lai, president of the National Dance Association, the event’s organizer, said the inaugural festival would offer a rare opportunity for local young dancers to engage with their peers from the international community.
The festival will begin with a Japanese dancer leading the -audience into the performance venue, followed by folk and acrobatic performances, according to Lai, who studied dance in Spain and has worked as a dance teacher for the last 40 years.
Photo: CNA
Ten local dance troupes, along with three teams from Hong Kong, Macau, and China, will then take to the stage and perform a wide array of dance styles in a three-hour extravaganza.
Lai said she originally hoped to bring more international teams to the festival, but a lack of funding forced her to drop that idea.
The festival was made possible by the Yungling Educational Foundation, which was founded in 2007 by Hon Hai Precision Industry chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), whose wife was a professional dancer.
The major difference between young dancers in Taiwan and Hong Kong or Macau, she said, is that Taiwanese children undergo strict training and are taught to always follow the rules.
In contrast, their contemporaries are given greater freedom to express their own feelings when -performing on stage.
Lai said many children take dance lessons in Taiwan, but tend to stop when they reach a certain age because of the limited opportunities available to them in professional dance circles.
“We should have more humanities courses in schools and the government should do more to support Taiwan’s dancers,” she said.
The International Children’s Dance Festival will take place at Huashan 1914 Creative Park from noon to 5pm today.
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