Arts enthusiasts will be treated to a month-long extravaganza of performances by 12 local troupes and artists, starting tomorrow, when the 2011 Traditional Performing Arts Festival opens in Taipei and Yilan, the organizers said yesterday.
The arts festival, now in its third year, will present a rich mix of Taiwanese and Chinese culture, said Ko Chi-liang (柯基良), director of the Council for Cultural Affairs’ National Center for the Traditional Arts.
The program will include Beijing opera, Taiwanese glove puppetry, Aboriginal singing, bangzi opera, which originated in Henan in central China and features a wooden clapper-like instrument called a bangzi, and nanguan, one of the oldest forms of Chinese musicals still in existence.
The festival, which will be held in Taipei and Yilan from tomorrow till April 30, will offer audiences a fresh look at how traditional arts can change with time as many groups choose to cross boundaries and work with artists of different genres, Ko said.
“We want to prove that tradition is not some lifeless antique, but rather is something dynamic,” he said.
One example is the New Puppet Ballet, which is a combination of traditional Taiwanese hand puppetry and Western ballet, he said.
In the ballet, dancers from Mad Theatre assume different puppet roles and dance to a wide range of music, a dancer surnamed Chien (簡) said.
“It’s a big challenge for the dancers because we have to pay attention to the dance movements, and at the same time, make sure we do not drop the puppets we are holding,” she said.
Another noteworthy performance will be Widow’s Peak, which features bangzi opera diva Wang Hai-ling (王海玲) and local filmmaker Lin Cheng-sheng (林正盛).
Wang said the presentation showcases the diversity of traditional bangzi opera.
Other highlights of the festival include a performance by the famed Guoguang Opera Company that depicts the changes in Beijing opera over the last 100 years, and a concert featuring Social Roots Family, a Taiwanese band that blends reggae with traditional Aboriginal music.
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