When barefoot stage performer and troubadour Yen Yung-neng (嚴詠能) found out that his Greater Kaohsiung-based performing arts troupe would be doing a month-long tour of North America, he said it was a dream come true.
“We’ve been looking forward to taking this show to North America for a long time and when we got the final word that the tour was on, with all the dates set, we were delighted,” Yen said in a recent backstage interview during a performance in Chiayi to help raise funds for airfare and lodging for his 20-member troupe of singers, dancers, fire-breathers and acrobats.
“We will be introducing elements of Taiwanese folk culture and music, singing in Hoklo [commonly known as Taiwanese] performing temple dances and folk songs,” he said. “Our hope is to transmit a sense of the vibrancy of Taiwan’s traditional local cultures.”
Among the cities set to host the “Sing Taiwan, Sing” shows are Washington on Saturday and Sunday, Atlanta on Tuesday next week and New York on May 25. as part of “2014 Taiwanese American Heritage Week” cosponsored by the Overseas Community Affairs Council.
Toronto, Canada, hosts the performers on May 31, which is to be the final show.
“I grew up in Kaohsiung, and to have a chance to tour America and Canada with my own folk group is a dream come true, and I can hardly speak English... But we worked hard on this show and we hope to serve as a bridge between Taiwan and America with this, and of course, Canada, too,” said Yen, who has fronted the Takao Run band of musicians and dancers since 2004.
Additional reporting by staff writer
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
RSS