The confusion between the Taipei government-sponsored Taipei Arts Festival and the independently organized Taipei City International Arts Festival has been clarified for everybody's benefit, not least people who love the performance arts, in the transformation of the latter into the 2002 Formosa International Arts Festival. This newly named event, which is actually the fourth in a series organized by Taipei Arts International Association (TAIA), will run between April 3 and June 16, and bring a wide range of modern performance theater to Taiwan -- and this year, will be pushing the boundaries of artistic conventions further than ever under its heading "multiplicity."
In 1999, Serina Chen (陳琪), Chairperson of TAIA, took over the management of the Taipei Arts Festival. She subsequently made the festival independent of the city government, making her event the premier showcase for international avant-garde performance arts. The festival followed the theme of "movement" with "voice and sound" in 2000 and then "image" in 2001. The themes gave audiences a chance to see the creative diversity that existed within various art forms, but Chen herself was pushing the festival towards interdisciplinary performance. The "image" theme provided for performers who incorporated mediums as different as dance and video, and included such internationally famous groups as Ultima Vez and the Arena Theatre Company.
This year, Chen's propensity for blurring the conventional boundaries of performance art is given the ultimate sanction in the theme of this year's event: "Multiplicity -- New Vision of Experience." It is a measure of the lack of commitment to outstanding performance over dogmatic adherence to avant-garde ideology that The Han-Tang Yuefu Ensemble -- a group that specializes in the venerable form of nankuan opera -- is present in the lineup.
While this year's festival continues a commitment to bringing in top-of-the-line foreign acts from all over the world -- this year, while the festival continues its close relationship with the British Council, it has also linked up this year with the French Institute, the Canadian Trade Office and the Russian Trade Office -- it also includes a stronger local presence than before, an affirmation of the creative talent from Taiwan. Most notably on this score is the joint production between dancer Lin Yuan-shang (林原上) -- an expatriate based in France -- and film director Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮), whose reputation as one of the world's great directors has recently been confirmed by the adulation with which his most recent film, What Time is it There? has been received.
Local talent will also be on display. Forbidden Party by The Taipei Dance Forum, in which Taipei Arts International Association is making a bold move by exploiting the massive, unstructured space of the disused winery that Whashan Arts District (華山藝文特區) has acquired as a major arts/party venue. As a counterbalance to this, there is the Han-Tang Yuefu Ensemble with the world premiere of The Feast of Han Xizai (韓熙載夜宴圖), one of its most ambitions projects to date, which has already received bookings from the Netherlands National Opera House and the Barbican Arts Center in London.
A new addition to the program of the festival is a series devoted to solo artists, who display another aspect of performance. While here again there are a number of purely traditional shows, with Zhou Lung (周龍) and Ke Chun (柯軍), top exponents of Beijing and Kun opera respectively, artists such as Taiwan's Chen Huei-wen (陳惠文) or the human/video interactive D.A.V.E. from Austria are redefining the very nature of solo performance.
TAIA's Chen is very aware of the risks that both the organization and the performers are taking in presenting this idea of multiplicity in the arts. At a press conference to announce the opening of the festival last week, Chen pointed out that incorporating two or more performance mediums is not a case of one plus one equals two. "It can just as easily be one plus one equals zero," she said.
From an organizational and financial point of view, the boldest development in the festival is found in its name. Previously, the festival has been centered on Taipei -- as indeed most major arts activity invariably is -- so the change of the events name to Formosa International Arts Festival is intended to embrace the whole of Taiwan, and this effort can be seen in the program, in which shows are spread out over not just a multiplicity of venues around Taipei, but also venues in Hsinchu, Changhua, Taichung, Kaohsiung and Tainan. This national outlook for a festival of modern arts has been made possible by subsidies from the Council of Cultural Affairs.
The World Music Festival, which last year took place under the umbrella of the arts festival, will this year have a totally separate identity and has been scheduled for late July or August.
More information about the festival can be found at its Web site at http://www.taf.org.tw. Ticketing is available through ERA at http://www.ticket.com.tw or by calling (02) 2341-9898.
When nature calls, Masana Izawa has followed the same routine for more than 50 years: heading out to the woods in Japan, dropping his pants and doing as bears do. “We survive by eating other living things. But you can give faeces back to nature so that organisms in the soil can decompose them,” the 74-year-old said. “This means you are giving life back. What could be a more sublime act?” “Fundo-shi” (“poop-soil master”) Izawa is something of a celebrity in Japan, publishing books, delivering lectures and appearing in a documentary. People flock to his “Poopland” and centuries-old wooden “Fundo-an” (“poop-soil house”) in
Jan 13 to Jan 19 Yang Jen-huang (楊仁煌) recalls being slapped by his father when he asked about their Sakizaya heritage, telling him to never mention it otherwise they’ll be killed. “Only then did I start learning about the Karewan Incident,” he tells Mayaw Kilang in “The social culture and ethnic identification of the Sakizaya” (撒奇萊雅族的社會文化與民族認定). “Many of our elders are reluctant to call themselves Sakizaya, and are accustomed to living in Amis (Pangcah) society. Therefore, it’s up to the younger generation to push for official recognition, because there’s still a taboo with the older people.” Although the Sakizaya became Taiwan’s 13th
For anyone on board the train looking out the window, it must have been a strange sight. The same foreigner stood outside waving at them four different times within ten minutes, three times on the left and once on the right, his face getting redder and sweatier each time. At this unique location, it’s actually possible to beat the train up the mountain on foot, though only with extreme effort. For the average hiker, the Dulishan Trail is still a great place to get some exercise and see the train — at least once — as it makes its way
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged, but changed registries in 2024, according to Maritime Executive magazine. The Financial Times published tracking data for the ship showing it crossing a number of undersea cables off northern Taiwan over the course of several days. The intent was clear. Shunxin-39, which according to the Taiwan Coast Guard was crewed
RSS