2020 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival – Away We Go

Due to the developing COVID-19 situation, please note that all programmes listed in this article are subject to changes. For the latest information and updates, please refer directly to the organiser’s website.

Festival Dates | 27th March to 17th May

Website | https://festival.ncfta.gov.tw/2020tttf/zh-tw
Video Link | https://www.facebook.com/xiqucentertw/videos/210348806669477/

Image Courtesy of National Center for Traditional Arts

Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival is Taiwan Traditional Theatre Center’s flagship event. Taking place annually in the spring, the 2020 edition features performances in the cross-disciplinary and/or cross-boundary context to stimulate an in-depth dialogue responding to contemporary theatre aesthetics, social issues and local culture. The scope and scale of the event witnesses Taiwan Traditional Theatre Center’s ambition and creativity in promoting Chinese performing arts.

Themed on Away We Go, the 2020 event will be focused on “cross-disciplinary collaboration” and “exploring female consciousness,” so that most of the performances do not fit into just a single category. It suggests that the Chinese theatre artists in Taiwan are open-minded and confident to move away from their comfort zones. This year, they want to invite the audience to look into their own lives through a collection of female figures who bravely stand up to their fate.

Several brilliant performances will take place at the Main Theatre. The flagship production Matinee in the Rain is the first Taiwanese opera play written by the receiver of the National Award Arts Chi Wei-jan, and it will be co-performed by Chun-Mei Taiwanese Opera Troupe and the “Taike-style” Golden Bough Theatre group. The original, radical combination effectively conveys the idea of “getting away with art.”

Image Courtesy of National Center for Traditional Arts

Matinee in the Rain (Image Courtesy of National Center for Traditional Arts)

Shintrun Taiwanese Opera Troupe will be presenting Chi-yuan and San-niang. The performance is led by Chang Meng-yi and Ku Yi-fan, both the receivers of Best Actor at the Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music. The storyteller is the national treasure performer Liao Chiung-chih. She will tell the ill-fated story of Lee San-niang from a fresh perspective. The Apocalypse of Darkness Warfare, an adaptation from a multiple award-winning comic series on the adventures of the sea goddess Mazu, is Ming Hwa Yuan Arts & Cultural Group’s first comics-based production. Grand Tour – Impressions on Western and Eastern Early Music is a Taiwan-French production presented by Xinxin Nanguan Ensemble and Doulce Mémoire featuring dialogues between Nanguan music and the French ancient music.

The three TMI-supported performing arts troupes will also be presenting their best productions for this grand occasion. GuoGuang Opera Company’s The Three Kingdoms Under Her Gaze offers an entirely new perspective to the long-overlooked female characters in the legends of the Three Kingdoms. Taiwan BanZi Opera Company’s Empress Dowager Cixi and Princess Zhen brings to stage a disastrous political turmoil triggered by royal family grudges. National Chinese Orchestra Taiwan’s Melodious Chinese Theatre Music Concert celebrates musicians and singers specialised in Chinese music, Taiwanese opera, Hakka opera, Beijing opera, Kunqu and Banzi opera.

The six performances to be staged at the Experimental Theatre, including four adaptations and two new plays, promise the audience an eye-opening experience. Gang-a Tsui Theatre’s Zhubun Elopes with the Ghost, is an exceptional combination of traditional Liyuan opera and Japanese butoh. Inside Out: A Tale of Allure and Enchantment, is co-staged by Shan Puppet Theatre and Hong Puppet Theatre under the genius direction of Wang Chia-ming. 1/2 Q Theatre’s Boat Fantasy for Mona Lisa combines kungqu, dance, theatre and installation, celebrating a stroll in the twilight zone between genders. Taiwan BanZi Opera Company’s Test the Wife! Murder the Wife! blends the episode Breaking Open the Coffin in traditional Chinese theatre and Kao Hsing-chien’s Nether City. Featuring a creative collision of modern music and traditional Banzi opera, the play has been invited to Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts in Singapore.

Among the two new productions, Lady Tsui – A Monodrama by Huang Yu-lin by Benshi Theatre Company is the receiver of Best Troupe Award at the first Dream Factory Chinese Theatre Competition. Based on the traditional episode A Regretful Dream and the life of the renowned Chinese theatre performer Huang Yulin, the play goes deep into the predicaments shared by contemporary women. Playwright Lee Ji-wen will present her awarded script Yen Ching in collaboration with A Studio A. The play parallels the authenticity of the legendary painting Listening to the Guqin to the destiny of a nation.

2020 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival will be entertaining the audience with 13 performances by leading artists from France, Japan and Taiwan. Themed on Away We Go, these socially conscious and artistically ambitious performances will guarantee a rewarding and inspiring experience that lasts a lifetime.