No, that’s not a cutesy reduplication in the name of this weekend’s StreetVoice Park Park Carnival. It literally refers to the act of parking a car in a public park.
Set for Saturday and Sunday, the carnival is held throughout Taipei Flora Expo Park (台北花博公園) with 11 live band areas, two DJ booths, a debate forum and a creative market. The bands will be playing in front of cars they are in charge of decorating and arranging into a performance area, hence the event’s name. That’s not all with the versatile word, though, with each area named after a parking lot in Taipei.
StreetVoice, a Chinese-language online music community Web site started the carnival with the goal of creating a free, diverse and intimate music festival without stages where the audience is encouraged to interact with the performers, says carnival spokesperson Lu Chun-ping (陸君萍).
Photo courtesy of StreetVoice Park Park Carnival
“When audience and performer are back to an eye-to-eye level, would it spark a new kind of relationship? Would it make live concerts more palatable to people who usually don’t attend them?” Lu asks.
Lu said she was happy last year to see listeners dancing alongside the musicians as well as elderly people checking out the events with their grandchildren.
“Isn’t this the musical scene we’ve all dreamed about?” she asks.
THE MUSIC
Groups consisting of three bands apply to participate through the Web site and are given a basic theme by organizers for their car decorations. More than 120 mostly local musical acts are on the bill, ranging from folk to death metal.
“The main point of this event isn’t whether the music is good or not,” Lu says. “It allows these musicians to display their crazy ideas and thoughts — which represent their personalities and aesthetic tastes — so they are seen as real human beings instead of just vehicles for music.”
Organizers have reserved one of the band areas for invited local and international acts such as Japan’s Mowmowlulugyaban and Chinese punk trio Reflector (反光鏡樂團).
One of the DJ stages is manned by Super ADD, known for their parties that combine electronic music and installation art, while the other features amateurs, also by application, who are limited to spinning Chinese — Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Hoklo and so on — and Aboriginal-language pop tracks.
The market consists of mostly handmade clothes and crafts, and attendees can grab food and drinks from Maji Maji Square (MAJI MAJI集食行樂) located in the park. Organizers have also reserved one of the band areas as a semi-truck stage for invited local and international acts.
Lu says this feature has drawn criticism for going against the free-for-all spirit of the festival, but they also hope to promote international music exchanges and collaborations in Asia.
There’s no limit to what the performers can do — Lu says they can project a movie onto their car or play hide-and-seek with the audience, who can even provide beer to the musicians in exchange for merchandise.
“We don’t want performers and audience to attend this festival from a traditional point of view and end up limiting themselves,” Lu says. “It’s an event that hopes to smash the authoritative division between those onstage and offstage.”
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