Blooming Enlightenment (花蕊渡河) by the U-Theater group (優人神鼓) proved an enormous success at the Taipei International Flora Expo (台北國際花博) last year. The original 40-minute performance has since been heavily reworked and expanded (it will run around 70 minutes) to create a new show featuring extensive input from U-Theater’s youth contingent, mostly in their late teens and early 20s.
Leo Fu (傅祺棠), a spokesperson for U-Theater, said that Blooming Enlightenment would be the last new production prior to the group embarking on a three-year hiatus. Fu said that founder Liu Ruo-yu (劉若瑀) wants to slow down the frantic cycle of creation and performance, and take a breather to refresh its creative juices.
At the same time, this new production is a celebration of the last decade or so of performance and training, taking young members of the theater group, many who joined educational programs run by U-Theater as children, onto the stage of Taiwan’s foremost performance venues.
Photos courtesy of U-theater
“U-Theater has been cultivating young performers over the last decade. Now that we (the older generation of performers) are becoming weary of our heavy performance schedule, the young performers are there to pick up the burden and take a leading role,” Liu said in a statement.
Blooming Enlightenment has just completed two preliminary shows in Yuanlin and Chiayi, which proved very popular despite the many departures from U-Theater’s usual performance style. “We were very nervous about this production,” Fu said, “since we had no idea what the audience response would be like. But the audience was really positive, with good ticket sales and an engaging post-performance Q&A.”
The new production looks very different from what we have come to expect from U-Theater. There is a lot more color, a radical move away from U-Theater’s preference for an earthy palette, and the mood of youthful vitality is also a contrast to the often somber intensity of U-Theater performances. The otherworldly abstractions that serve the focus of the group’s expressive efforts are also filled out with a more accessible storyline.
The concept for the original show — a wanderer’s observation of a wild flower from bud to dissolution and his realization of the forces that drive the cycle of life — was taken from a five character haiku. It has now been further expanded to include a group of student backpackers who stop to rest at a temple, meet the wanderer and learn from him.
The youth contingent are not only performers, but have played an active role in the creative process for the new production, from composition through to presentation. According to U-Theater, this is an attempt to showcase the creativity and youthful exuberance of the younger generation, but also to create a more lighthearted and less constrained musical format in which to explore complex, even mystical issues.
The participation of the younger members of U-Theater, many of whom are currently studying performance art at college, has led to the incorporation of many unexpected elements in this production, reflecting their exposure to international musical culture. “You would not expect to see a xylophone or glockenspiel in a U-Theater production, but these instruments, among others, have been added, making the musical texture much more varied,” Fu said.
“At heart, the spirit of U-Theater remains the same,” Fu said. “It’s just that the presentation has changed, and we hope that this will provide more avenues to gain a deeper understanding of the U-Theater message.”
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
RSS