In front of an ensemble of traditional musicians playing string instruments with exotic names like rawap, tambur, dutar and satar, performers in gold-laced garb twirl and swing to the choir's soulful crooning. This ancient Turkish folk art is brought to modern audiences by the Xinjiang Muqam Art Ensemble, which kicks off its island-wide tour this weekend.
Proclaimed a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, the group performs one of the world's most complex music forms, which incorporates song, dance and music.
The muqam, or performing troupe, emerged in the 16th century when Princess Amanishahan called on folk performers to collect, collate and standardize the folk art form that had been around for thousands of years. The lyrics sung are poems, folk tales and legends as well as stories about heroes, yearning and love vividly expressed through the highly-charged dances and music.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF ARTS FORMOSA COMPANY
Fast-forward to 1950s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, an arid western province of China. At the time, there were three elderly muqam performers and only one of them could complete the performances that take 24 hours, according to Huang Yongjun (黃永軍), deputy director-general of the Department of Culture in the autonomous region who is leading the art ensemble on its Taiwan tour.
The master, in his 90s, left recordings of everything he knew and the material was edited into a canon now performed by the Xinjiang Muqam Art Ensemble.
The ensemble's Taiwan performances will also include Turpan, Kumul and Daolan, the most popular of the regional performance styles, which are named after the region's oasis towns.
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