About 300,000 selected photographs recording a five-year tour of performances by entertainment troupe Paper Windmill Theatre (紙風車劇團) were officially accepted into the permanent collection at the National Museum of History yesterday, highlighting years of devotion and effort by the group and its supporters’ that aim to bring arts to children living in the country’s 319 townships.
Dubbed First Mile, Kid’s Smile: Arts for Children in 319 Townships, the tour was envisioned as a cultural movement dedicated to youngsters who are deprived of access to the arts in the nation’s rural areas.
Not accepting any government funding in order to remain autonomous, the troupe relied on individual donors, volunteers and corporate sponsors to bring a live 90-minute performance to any township that could raise NT$350,000 for the production that required a crew of 20 to 30 people.
The tour began in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山) in 2006. For the next five years, the troupe ventured into each one of the country’s 319 townships as far afield as Wuciou Island (烏坵), Kinmen County, where there are only about 40 inhabitants. The last show took place in New Taipei City’s Wanli Township (萬里) on Dec. 3 last year, in front of an audience of more than 6,000 people.
Designed to showcase different facets of the performing arts, the production combined theatrical performances, music, dance and multimedia shows with puppetry and an autobiographical theatrical piece that recounted the on-the-road adventures of theater director Wu Nien-jen’s (吳念真) when he was eight years old.
According to Chuang Chiung-ju (莊瓊如), the group’s artistic director, the troupe owed its success to everybody that had participated in the tour.
“In remote villages such as in Alishan (阿里山), school teachers and parents would charter buses to send children to see our shows. One of our most memorable performances was in Jianshih (尖石) in Hsinchu County [a remote Atayal community], where kids came from different hamlets in the mountains during a typhoon,” Chuang said at a press conference yesterday.
The troupe raised more than NT$260 million in the past five years through donations, and it is estimated that nearly 800,000 people attended its performances.
National Museum of History Director Chang Yui-tan (張譽騰) said he was initially surprised when Lee Yung-feng (李永豐), chief executive of the Paper Windmill Cultural Foundation, approached him regarding collecting the photographs.
“I want to thank [the Paper Windmill] for reminding us that our museum is not just about collecting antiques, but is also obligated to build relations and dialogues with society,” Chang said.
The photographs documenting about 380 performances over five years were shot by 14 volunteer photographers, including Tsai Yu-hao (蔡育豪) and Kao Hsiu-min (高修民).
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its