The annual Taipei Dadaocheng Fireworks Festival will be held at Dadaocheng Wharf and Yanping Riverside Park on Aug. 6 with a puppetry extravaganza, a concert and a 20-minute fireworks show, organizers have announced.
Connecting the fireworks festival with the local history and traditions of Datong District (大同), the festival this year will start at 3pm with a lecture and movies about the Dadaocheng area, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, as well as an exhibition of glove puppetry, show scripts and storage cases by the Li Tien-lu Hand Puppet Foundation, a non-profit organization founded to promote Taiwanese puppet shows and the legacy of late puppetry master Li Tien-lu (李天祿).
SONGS ON THE RIVERBANK
Visitors can also enjoy puppet shows and concerts featuring local singers on the main stage along the riverbank between floodgates three and five.
The fireworks display will be held at 8:30pm at the same venue on the Tamsui River (淡水河) and on Zhongxiao Bridge (忠孝橋) in Sanchong (三重).
The event will reach a climax with the staging of one of Li’s best-known works by I Wan Jan (亦宛然), the troupe that he founded.
PUPPET SHOW
To promote the festival at a press conference yesterday, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) joined Chao Hsin-ping (趙心屏), commissioner of the Taipei City Government’s Department of Information and Tourism, in a puppet show performance.
The festival, which is being held on Lovers’ Day, is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of spectators.
Taipei’s Traffic Police Division yesterday urged those planning to attend the event to use public transport to avoid traffic congestion that is expected in the area.
Traffic Police Division Director Dennis Huang (黃勢清) said shuttle bus services would be available between 5pm and 11pm between the venue, MRT Taipei Main Station and MRT Shuang-lian Station.
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