Taiwan International Festival of Arts 2021 at NTCH

Taiwan International Festival of Arts 2021, the major platform showcasing celebrated works at the National Theater & Concert Hall (NTCH) in Taipei, will take place from 2 March through 2 May 2021, with 21 programmes lined up. While uncertainty lies ahead for international programmes due to border control, 12 new Taiwanese productions, spanning across theatre, dance and music, have shown ambition and explosive creativity of veteran and established artists. Some highlights include:

THEATRE

Produced by NTCH, A Thousand Stages, Yet I Have Never Quite Lived (9 – 11 April 2021) is a theatre collaboration by Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen and Beijing Opera diva Wei Hai-min, awarding winning visual artist Chen Chieh-jen and photographer Chang Chao-tang. Ong draws from major events in the life of the legendary Beijing Opera diva from Taiwan, to show how the singer’s art form developed amid social change on this island nation, and how her story ties into the shared human experience of modern times.

River / Cloud (2 – 4 April 2021) by Performance Workshop pays homage to the most famous pair of misplaced lovers — Jiang and Yun — in the groundbreaking work Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land by Stan Lai from 1986. Lin Ching-hsia, Huang Lei, and Ismene Ting, who once played two protagonists in previous productions, will provide letters for the two lovers which creates rich scenes for this work. Chang Chen and Hsiao Ai play Jiang and Yun, young and old.

A coproduction by NTCH, National Taichung Theater, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying), Palaces (16 – 18 April 2021) is a five-hour epic work composed of two episodes: Outside In and Inside Out, created by Our Theatre, a group dedicated to contemporary theatre in Taiwan. Based on five well-known Taiwanese folk mysteries dating from past centuries, Palaces takes place in a typical high-rise building in urban Taiwan today, which contains both businesses and residential homes. The play traces the lives of occupants from the 1990s until the present, revealing stories of love, hatred and revenge.

Palaces: Outside In and Inside Out

DANCE

Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain (23 – 25 April 2021) is the latest work by the two-time Taishi Art Award winner Bulareyaung Dance Company. In 2014, one of Taiwan’s most acclaimed choreographers, Bulareyaung Pagarlava, returned to his home village on the island’s east coast to train aspiring indigenous youth dancers. Drawing from the experience, Bulareyaung conceived this performance to reflect the ultimate journey for any person — the journey of one’s self.

Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain (Photo by Rungiya Kao)

Huang Yi has dazzled audiences around the world with his groundbreaking work, Huang Yi & KUKA, in which he and his dancers perform alongside an industrial robot he programmed. In Little Ant and Robot (23 – 25 April 2021), Huang and his robotic friends will team up to run a cafe, unveiling a harmonious new world shared by man and robot.

Little Ant & Robot: A Nomad Cafe (Photo by Summer Yen)

Choreographer Chou Shu-yi and theatre director Cheng Chih-chung team up in The Centre which examines how equality and inequality manifest in the relationship between the human body and society.

Double bill Ita & Ari-Ari: Indigenous Taiwan connects with Indonesia in this cross-cultural collaboration led by Watan Tusi, a Taiwan Pulima Arts Award winner, and Eko Supriyanto, one of Indonesia’s leading contemporary dancers and choreographers. Overseeing a dancers’ exchange, Watan and Eko engage in a larger dialogue about displacement and spiritual connection.

The Center (Photo by Chen Chang-chih)

MUSIC

In concert i-village Trilogy, the award-winning Sheng-Xiang & Band brings together the complete i-village trilogy album to the stage in a contemporary classical orchestra orchestrated fashion, re-created and re-orchestrated by the composer Chang Shiuan. It invites the audience to experience the impermanence (change and unchanged) of rural modernization.

i-village Trilogy

For full the full programme line up, please visit our website at Taiwan International Festival of Arts 2021.