To Mark Moments of 2020 with National Taichung Theater’s Fall for Great Souls Series

The year of 2020 has been one full of great turmoil throughout the world. Yet even in such challenging and difficult times, artists have not stopped moving forward. In the Fall for Great Souls series at the National Taichung Theater (NTT) this year, the audiences would witness and experience remarkable artistic achievements, ranging from music, literature to dance, covering classic and contemporary transformation. 11 significant productions are presented with three themes – BEING, SOUL and CORE.

In the BEING category, great masters bring forth original creative ideas.

Based on PAI Hsien-yung’s novel Crystal Boys, the stage adaptation by PAI and Creative Society Theatre Group premiered in 2014 and stunned the world. The 2020 revival coincides with the 40^th anniversary of the novel’s publication. Set in the 1970s, an age of repression during which the gay community in Taiwan was severely stigmatised and marginalised, this play centers on the main characters’ love, desire, and hope.

Creative Society ­Theatre Group – Crystal Boys (Image Courtesy of National Taichung Theater)

Over the past decades, TSENG Dau-hsiong has produced more than 40 operas in Taiwan with his company Taipei Opera ­Theater. A collaboration with National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra and Genio Dance Group Flamenco de Formosa, through the double bill of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo and La Vida Breve, TSENG creates a distinct Spanish blend of mysterious colors and ever-changing rhythms.

Created by LIN Lee-chen, the Artistic Director of Legend Lin Dance Theatre, Anthem to the Fading Flowers adopts the four seasons as its structure and takes natural elements as metaphors to lead its audiences into a realm where human, nature, and earth are integrated. Details within are imaginative, abundant, and touching. In this time of impermanence, audiences are guided through the changes of the four seasons in nature.

­To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, the legendary Korean pianist Kun-woo PAIK presents the complete cycle of Beethoven’s piano sonatas to Taiwanese audiences for the first time, traversing the entire oeuvre in eight performances across eight consecutive days.

SOUL reveals humanity in original intents and clear hearts.

Cooperated by director, playwright and actor Daniel WANG, his company M.O.V.E. Theatre and the phenomenal actor LUO Bei-an, Wonderful presents a touching emotion between a father and a son, exploring the intimate but also alienated kinship between families in the modern world.

M.O.V.E. Theatre – Wonderful (Image Courtesy of National Taichung Theater)

As a late Generation X-er, CHENG Tsung-Lung, the new Artistic Director and Choreographer of Cloud Gate Dance ­Theatre, nonetheless finds himself caught up in the frenzy of digital devices and ever-shortening attention spans. CHENG’s latest work Sounding Light seeks to tap into the self, with or without such devices, to search for an equilibrium within oneself, and he pushes to connect with anxieties deep within, reaching within the body’s sounding instrument – the voice.

Based on the folk traditions of wang-ye (heavenly lords) worship on the southeastern coast of Taiwan, Ming Hwa Yuan Arts & Cultural Group’s all-new production The Khun Island gives a new appearance to this time-honoured piece but the narrative remains eternal, the compassion and childlike heart of humanity.

Since its premiere in 1896, Puccini’s La Bohème has become one of the handful of works central to the opera repertoire worldwide, depicting the bohemian lifestyle of late 19th-century artists and intellectuals. This time, German director Andreas Homoki adopts a contemporary viewpoint in his interpretation and recreates the Quartier Latin of Paris, with a colourful, enormous Christmas tree highlighting the free spirit of life and passion.

La Bohème (Image Courtesy of National Taichung Theater)

With the theme of CORE, artists emerge from the classics through collision expressing contemporary perspectives.

Freely inspired by the novel Oedipus on the Road by francophone Belgian writer Henry Bauchau, Théâtre de l’Entrouvert’s Anywhere retells the Greek tragedy of Oedipus with artistry in minimalist visuals and ephemeral materials. As mist, fire and light ritualistically swirl in the pitch-black of the stage, the ice puppet of Oedipus gradually melts and transcends its physical form, a direct depiction of the protagonist’s inner travels and travails.

Taking inspiration from the physical antics of Charlie Chaplin, Jacques Tati and Mr. Bean, Fishbowl by Le Fils du Grand Réseau Theatre Company is at once both realistic and absurd, as its characters stumble through the regular hilarity of everyday apartment life.

Belgian theater company tg STAN brings The Cherry Orchard, the most enigmatic of Anton Chekhov’s works, for their Taiwanese debut. In highlighting Chekhov’s original conception of the work as a comedy, with the company’s distinctive collective rehearsals, tg STAN speaks not of the injustice of fate, but rather the absurd and farcical ignorance of the protagonists.

tg STAN – The Cherry Orchard (Image Courtesy of National Taichung Theater)

Visit here for more information.