Pili International Multimedia has teamed up with YouTube to air its Taiwanese puppet shows on the Web site in an effort to promote the traditional art among overseas viewers.
Starting this week on Wednesday, YouTube viewers can see eight series of puppet shows from Pili Multimedia, company chairman Vincent Huang (黃強華) said.
The shows are to be presented in Taiwanese with English subtitles, he said. The content currently is free, but Pili Multimedia said it might soon introduce a fee.
Photo: CNA
Huang said he hoped viewers around the world would be able to learn more about the culture of budaixi (布袋戲), or Taiwanese traditional puppet theater, through the YouTube clips.
Meanwhile, Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said YouTube is pleased to work with Pili to promote the art abroad. Chien recalled skipping classes when he was a child to watch budaixi.
Hand or cloth puppet shows were first introduced to Taiwan in the Qing Dynasty, and new cultural elements and creative performing styles were adapted to create the popular puppet shows seen today.
Pili International Multimedia evolved in 2000 from a puppet show company that was established in 1992 by Chris and Vincent Huang, members of the nation’s most prominent puppet family.
Their grandfather, Huang Hai-tai (黃海岱), father Huang Chun-hsiung (黃俊雄) and other family members maintained the tradition of finding new ways to advance the art of wooden puppet performances.
The younger Huangs have adopted Hollywood production techniques, as well as computer animated special effects and digital sound effects, to take the traditional art form to a new level since the release of Pili Multimedia’s first puppet film in 2000, Legend of the Sacred Stone (聖石傳說).
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