When Slow Island Theater Group’s (慢島劇團) popular musical, Moon Girl (月孃), premiered in 2010, their choice of venue seemed unconventional at first. For two weeks, the troupe performed a story about the lives of three women growing up together in a karaoke parlor in front of a live audience at Ke Lai (閣徠演歌坊), a karaoke parlor in Taipei’s Ningxia Night Market (寧夏夜市).
“Every performance, there would be two, three people in the audience who hadn’t seen any theatrical production before. They came to sing karaoke, but found us instead,” troupe founder Wang Ke-yao (王珂瑤) says.
It’s precisely these types of audiences that the theater troupe wants to reach out to — people who don’t normally go to the theater.
Photo Courtesy of Slow Island Theater Group
For its 2013 production, Factory (鐵工廠), Slow Island teamed up with organizations such as the Taiwan International Workers Association (台灣國際勞工協會) to invite factory employees, migrant workers and immigrants from Southeast Asian countries to see a lively musical centering on a group of Thai, Indonesian and Taiwanese workers at a small factory in Greater Taoyuan. It used dance, singing and comedy to address social issues surrounding labor and immigrant workers.
BRINGING THEATER TO THE MASSES
To Wang, the aim is to create everyday art for everyday folk. “My performances used to be poetic and abstruse. Every time my mom came to my show, she would be like, ‘I don’t understand a thing,’” she says.
In 2008, Wang returned to her hometown in Taoyuan and established Slow Island. Often assuming the roles of both producer and performer, Wang collaborates with different artists, which explains the troupe’s diverse oeuvre. Factory was directed by Lin Hsin-i (林欣怡) from the more politically-oriented Taiwan Haibizi (台灣海筆子). Meanwhile, Mint, Rosemary and the Flower with no Name (薄荷、迷迭香和不知名的花) in 2008 and Awakening of Love (夢醒時分) in 2012 are romantic comedies led by Wu Shih-wei (吳世偉).
Moon Girl, on the other hand, is a collaboration between Taiwan’s theatrical talents, including Betsy Lan (藍貝芝) and Hung Pei-ching (洪珮菁) and American director Dan Chumley, with whom Wang had worked on a Taiwanese production of The Vagina Monologues (陰道獨白) in 2007.
Featuring many old Mandarin and Hoklo-langague ballads as well as original songs by Cheng Chieh-jen (鄭捷任), the music director of Tiehua Music Village (鐵花村) in Taitung County, the production tells a bittersweet story about the decline of a karaoke parlor called Moon Girl. It revolves around three orphaned girls who were raised by the parlor owner who go their separate ways after growing up and return bearing the scars of life.
Since its successful premiere, Moon Girl has returned to few karaoke parlors and other venues in Taitung County, Greater Tainan and Greater Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢) in 2012. It even traveled to Brazil last year. A new tour began in Greater Kaohsiung last month and will end this week with six shows in Yilan City.
“It is a melodrama. It is about humanity. Everybody can understand it,” Wang adds.
When asked about what she wants to do next, Wang says she has planned to bring an audience-friendly production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to local parks and community centers across the country.
“I think stage performances are good to see. People just don’t know how and where to see them. Hopefully, I can offer more access,” Wang says.
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
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
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had