At first glance, the Tainan Arts Festival (台南藝術節) looks like any other comprehensive festival. But a closer look reveals that organizers want to support local talent and connect the event with the city’s rich culture, history and environment.
While there are the usual international acts and well-known performance groups from across the nation, the festival is noted for its City Stage section, which features performances by Tainan-based artists at the city’s abundant historical sites, temples, galleries, outdoor plazas, alleys and other unconventional spaces.
Lin Long Dance Company (靈龍舞蹈團), for example, brings audiences to the historical waterfront in Anping (安平) with Relax Waterfront (悠遊水岸), which was inspired by the city’s once thriving fishing community.
Photo courtesy of Tainan Arts Festival
At Chin Jih Movie Theater (今日戲院) this weekend, Scarecrow Contemporary Dance Company (稻草人現代舞蹈團) presents Incident Today (今日‧事件), a performance that fuses moving images with theater to reveal what’s in the mind of an old man.
Apart from the City Stage lineup, prominent bossa nova artist Lisa Ono from Japan will hold a concert tomorrow. Theater group Po You Set (柏優座) puts forth Assassins — Jing Ke (刺客列傳 — 荊軻), a comedy that turns the legendary assassin during China’s Warring State period into a contemporary story about a college graduate who struggles with a miserly boss and a tyrannical client.
Changing values and norms of the Taiwanese family is under examination in Borrowed Family (拼裝家族) by M.O.V.E. Theatre (動見体劇團), starring reputed theater veteran Winnie Chang (張詩盈).
Photo courtesy of Tainan Arts Festival
Other highlights include One Hundred Years of Solitude (百年孤寂) by Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group (莎士比亞的妹妹們的劇團). Adapted from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic of the same title, the production will be performed amid the unique landscape of Cigu Salt Mountains (七股鹽山), a popular tourism attraction.
From Dessau Opera, Germany, celebrated conductor Antony Hermus will lead seven renown European vocalists for an operatic extravaganza, slated to take place in the grand outdoor plaza of Chimei Museum (奇美博物館) on June 11 and June 12.
More information can be found at the festival’s Web site at tnaf.tnc.gov.tw.
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