Performance arts are ruled by tradition, but no matter how much one must adhere to tradition, there are times that it must yield to innovation, as the Sin Li Mei Taiwanese Opera Troupe has shown by incorporating circus acrobatics into traditional Taiwanese opera.
The catalyst for the change came six years ago, when the National Vietnamese Circus came to Taiwan. Stopping at Taibao City (太保) in Chiayi County, the circus’ star and lead performer, nicknamed Annie, met the head of the Taiwanese troupe, Chang Chin-hu (張金湖).
Chang found that Annie was not only an effective administrator, organizing food and lodging for the circus, but was also fluent in English, as well as being a talented acrobat.
Photo courtesey of Chang Fang-yuan
Thinking that she would be perfect for his son, Chang introduced them, and only two weeks later, Annie and his son, Chang Fang-yuan (張芳遠), decided to get married.
On joining the family, Annie quit her job with the Vietnamese circus and moved to Taiwan, and before long was helping out with the troupe.
In the beginning, Annie struggled because she was a complete beginner at Mandarin Chinese and Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese).
Afraid that she would make mistakes reciting her lines during shows, Annie made sure she committed the lines to memory.
Even so, she was still afraid of taking on the main roles and generally played only minor characters.
“My mother-in-law told me: ‘If you are afraid then you will never learn well,’” Annie said, adding that 76-year-old troupe director Yen Yueh-e (顏月娥) also spent extra time training her on playing the various roles.
“Taiwanese Opera is so interesting and contains so much knowledge,” Annie said, adding that although performing opera is much harder than being in the circus, she was already in love with it and would continue to perform.
Annie’s experience with the troupe also had other bonuses, as she is now fluent in Hoklo and is able to fit into the society around her.
Annie has also incorporated elements of her circus acrobatics into performances, injecting new vitality into the shows of the troupe, which has been performing for the past six decades.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching