Though the Cloud Gate(雲門)modern dance company has garnered too many international accolades to count, it continues to reserve a steady slate of
performances for the home audience in Taiwan. At 7:45pm next Wednesday,
March 6, as part of the Taipei City-sponsored Traditional Arts Festival, it
will perform one of its classics, Songs of the Wanderers.
The performance brings Songs of the Wanderers back to Taipei's National
Theater, the stage on which it premiered on Nov. 4, 1994. The piece itself
was conceived earlier that year, after Cloud Gate founder and artistic
director Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) traveled to Bodhgaya, India, the historical
site of the Buddha's enlightenment under a banyan tree. For inspiration, Lin
drew on his own reflections while in India, as well as rice, a vestige from
his childhood that enters the stage through bushels of golden grains that
are poured and sifted onto the dancers, and Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha
Lin's work takes its name from the Chinese translation of the book's title
(流浪者之歌). Through more than 120 performances, Songs has received glowing
reviews from the New York Times among other publications, and toured many of
the leading dance festivals in Europe and the US. It remains as one of five
pieces in Cloud Gate's repertoire.
Tickets for Songs of the Wanderers are available for between NT$300 and
NT$1,500, and are available through ERA ticket outlets. For theater and
ticketing information, see listings.
Climate change, political headwinds and diverging market dynamics around the world have pushed coffee prices to fresh records, jacking up the cost of your everyday brew or a barista’s signature macchiato. While the current hot streak may calm down in the coming months, experts and industry insiders expect volatility will remain the watchword, giving little visibility for producers — two-thirds of whom farm parcels of less than one hectare. METEORIC RISE The price of arabica beans listed in New York surged by 90 percent last year, smashing on Dec. 10 a record dating from 1977 — US$3.48 per pound. Robusta prices have
A dozen excited 10-year-olds are bouncing in their chairs. The small classroom’s walls are lined with racks of wetsuits and water equipment, and decorated with posters of turtles. But the students’ eyes are trained on their teacher, Tseng Ching-ming, describing the currents and sea conditions at nearby Banana Bay, where they’ll soon be going. “Today you have one mission: to take off your equipment and float in the water,” he says. Some of the kids grin, nervously. They don’t know it, but the students from Kenting-Eluan elementary school on Taiwan’s southernmost point, are rare among their peers and predecessors. Despite most of
The resignation of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) co-founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) as party chair on Jan. 1 has led to an interesting battle between two leading party figures, Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) and Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如). For years the party has been a one-man show, but with Ko being held incommunicado while on trial for corruption, the new chair’s leadership could be make or break for the young party. Not only are the two very different in style, their backgrounds are very different. Tsai is a co-founder of the TPP and has been with Ko from the very beginning. Huang has
Nine Taiwanese nervously stand on an observation platform at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. It’s 9:20am on March 27, 1968, and they are awaiting the arrival of Liu Wen-ching (柳文卿), who is about to be deported back to Taiwan where he faces possible execution for his independence activities. As he is removed from a minibus, a tenth activist, Dai Tian-chao (戴天昭), jumps out of his hiding place and attacks the immigration officials — the nine other activists in tow — while urging Liu to make a run for it. But he’s pinned to the ground. Amid the commotion, Liu tries to
RSS