On Aug. 15, 2003, the then-Taipei Cultural Affairs Bureau erected a red signpost at the entrance of Lane 231, Fuxing N Road, declaring the roadway “Cloud Gate Lane” in honor of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集), which had its offices at No. 19 and was celebrating its 30th anniversary that year.
On Thursday morning, the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs held a ceremony to mark the removal of that signpost and the end of an era.
The nation’s pre-eminent dance troupe is moving its headquarters from the nation’s capital to New Taipei City, where its new studio and performance facility — the Cloud Gate Theater — in Tamsui District (淡水) will officially open in April.
Photo: CNA
Staff from the Taipei office and the rehearsal facility in Bali District (八里), across the river from Tamsui, have been shifting their equipment to the theater complex and they officially move in tomorrow.
Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs Director Ni Chung-hwa (倪重華) presented Cloud Gate founder and artistic director Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) with the old street sign, now framed, and the two men unveiled a new historical marker at the entrance to Lane 130, Minsheng E Road — around the corner from the soon-to-be-vacated offices.
The new sign gives an explanation in Chinese and English about the lane and the importance of Cloud Gate to the cultural life of Taipei and the nation.
Photo: CNA
The company, which was established in 1973, moved into the Fuxing N Road offices in 1997.
Lin said the move to Tamsui means that after 42 years, the company will finally have its own home, and he thanked the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs for its support and encouragement over the years.
“This is not the end of the beginning,” he said.
Ni announced that to mark the opening of the Cloud Gate Theater, an MRT train would be painted in the troupe’s honor as a “housewarming gift” and will run for four months on the Taipei MRT’s Xinyi line, starting in April.
Cloud Gate has announced that on show days, free shuttle buses will be provided between MRT Tamsui Station and the theater, but seats must be reserved in advance online.
It also announced that the name of the Cloud Gate Foundation has been changed to Cloud Gate Culture and Arts Foundation.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,