Firing shots into the air, a group of Chechen rebels storm a theater in Moscow and take roughly 700 theatergoers hostage. Terrorists blow up commuter trains in Madrid. Two planes plow into the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Terrorism, whether directly experienced by the few or seen on television by the many, is a fact of contemporary life. It is also the central theme of La Fura dels Baus docu-drama Boris Godunov, which begins next Friday at Taipei's National Theater.
"The show is a reflection on global terrorism, [with] archetypal characters," said director Alex Olle in a recent interview with the Spanish-language newspaper Barceloca.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TAIPEI ARTS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION
Boris Godunov fuses a true-life event, the attack on the Moscow's Dubrovka Theater in October of 2002, with Alexander Pushkin's play, which takes its title from the Czar of the same name, who gradually sinks into madness after murdering the Czarevich Dimitri to usurp the throne.
By blending the historical with the contemporary, the real with the fictive, La Fura creates a tragic parable about the quandary between means and ends and how corruption often breeds violence.
"Many times violence is used to gain power, not only through terrorism but also through states," Olle said.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TAIPEI ARTS INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION
But the play doesn't so much analyze the causes of terrorism as it shows how terrorism radically alters the people who perpetrate it, and the consequent effect on how we perceive the world.
The troupe's objective with Boris Godunov is to immerse the audience in an extreme experience and, in the process, return theater to its cathartic roots.
The play opens with Godunov brooding over the prince's murder. Preoccupied with bad omens, the Czar fails to notice the balaclava-clad figures sneaking through the room and filling it with explosives. Gradually, the terrorists begin to move out into the audience, shifting the action from the Czar's lodgings to the Dubrovka Theater.
From this point on the audience experiences a simulation of the horrors suffered by the hostages in the Moscow theater: the appearance of the militants, the planting of bombs, the tension of the kidnapping and the arguments among the terrorists.
"[W]e give the terrorists some motives … from the most mercenary terrorist - who could be on either side, to the widowed terrorist - acting more out of vengeance, or hate, or the person who [is doing it] for some ideals," Olle said.
Though the spotlight shines squarely on the individual motives and internal disputes of the terrorists, La Fura's Boris Godunov suggests that the rationale for acts of terrorism have their roots in the foreign and domestic agendas of nation-states. As such, terrorism and its opponents are simply two different sides of the same tarnished coin.
Nothing like the spectacular, dramatic unraveling of a political party in Taiwan has unfolded before as has hit the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) over recent weeks. The meltdown of the New Power Party (NPP) and the self-implosion of the New Party (NP) were nothing compared to the drama playing out now involving the TPP. This ongoing saga is so interesting, this is the fifth straight column on the subject. To catch up on this train wreck of a story up to Aug. 20, search for “Donovan’s Deep Dives Ko Wen-je” in a search engine. ANN KAO SENTENCED TO PRISON YET AGAIN,
President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision for Taiwan to become an “AI island” has three conditions: constructing advanced data centers, ensuring a stable and green energy supply, and cultivating AI talent. However, the energy issue supply is the greatest challenge. To clarify, let’s reframe the problem in terms of the Olympics. Given Taiwan’s OEM (original equipment manufacturer) roles in the technology sector, Taiwan is not an athlete in the AI Olympics, or even a trainer, but rather a training ground for global AI athletes (AI companies). In other words, Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem provides world-class training facilities and equipment that have already attracted
Despite her well-paying tech job, Li Daijing didn’t hesitate when her cousin asked for help running a restaurant in Mexico City. She packed up and left China for the Mexican capital last year, with dreams of a new adventure. The 30-year-old woman from Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, hopes one day to start an online business importing furniture from her home country. “I want more,” Li said. “I want to be a strong woman. I want independence.” Li is among a new wave of Chinese migrants who are leaving their country in search of opportunities, more freedom or better financial prospects at a
During her final years of high school, Chinese teenager Xu Yunting found an unusual way to make some pocket money: transforming herself into male video game characters and taking their female devotees on dates. The trend, called “cos commissioning,” has gained traction in China recently, with social media posts garnering millions of views as an increasing number of young women use their purchasing power to engineer a meeting with their dream man in real life. One early morning in Shanghai last month, Xu carefully inserted contacts to enlarge her irises and adjusted a tangerine wig to transform into “Jesse,” a character from
RSS