In an effort to promote Taiwanese Opera in an alternative and more audience-friendly way, the Council for Cultural Affairs announced yesterday a series of "script-reading" performances, inviting the public to experience the beauty of Taiwanese art and literature.
"The Taiwanese Opera Stage Reading Festival," organized by the council and the National Center for Traditional Arts in Ilan, incorporates the Western "script-reading" style into the traditional Taiwanese art form.
The festival invites famous Taiwanese Opera performers and troupes to read or sing scripts from the genre, instead of giving formal performances.
"Representing Taiwanese opera through script-reading is a wonderful way to create a more intimate relationship between the traditional art form and the public," said council Chairman Chen Chi-nan (
"It would be hard to teach 1,000 people to perform opera, however, it would be much easier to learn how to sing or read the scripts," Chen said.
"Students can even use the scripts as an alternative textbook to practice standard Hoklo," Chen said.
According to Tsai Hsin-hsin (
Folklore
Some of the opera themes involved include historical events, tales of gods and spirits, and romance, which were creatively applied to reflect Taiwan's history and folklore.
"By recreating opera scripts through oral interviews with veteran artists and interpreting traditional opera through Western-style script-reading, the festival will hopefully attract both Taiwanese Opera fans and first-timers to enjoy opera," said Tsai, a Chinese literature department professor at the National Cheng Chi University.
Attending the press conference to sing the script for the opera titled Taiwan-My Mother, actresses from Hoklo Taiwanese Opera Troupe Wang Jin-ying (
"It takes a great deal of skill to master Taiwanese Opera. But we don't want the hard part to scare the public away. I think script-reading or singing is a good way to teach people about the beauty of Taiwanese Opera," said Wang, who won the Global Chinese Culture & Art Award in 2000.
Wang now teaches Taiwanese Opera in college.
Artists from well-known Taiwanese opera troupes invited by the Taiwanese Opera Script Reading Festival include Tang Mei-yun (唐美雲) Taiwanese Opera Company, the Minghua Yuan Taiwanese Opera Troupe, the Hoklo Taiwanese Opera Troupe and the Lan-Yang Taiwanese Opera Company.
Schedule
The festival will begin Saturday at the National Center for Research and Preservation of Cultural Property in Tainan, then continue at the Red Theater in Taipei on April 23 and 24.
Then it will feature at the traditional arts center in Ilan on May 7 and May 8.
For more details on the festival's schedule, you can go to the Web site of the National Center for Traditional Arts at http://www.ncfta.gov.tw
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