The NTCH approaches its operations and future development with four core values
The National Theater & Concert Hall (NTCH) celebrates its 35th anniversary in 2022 and will take this opportunity to lean into its core values: inclusivity, innovation, community building, and artistic mobility. In this spirit, here is a summary of recent happenings at the NTCH.
ACPC Open Call until 31 March 2022
Asia Connection: Producers Camp (ACPC) welcomed applications for its 2022 edition earlier this year. ACPC, a workshop for producers from the Asia-Pacific region, takes place online as a four-week “training camp” in which participants work with experienced mentors and peers in the fields of theatre and dance, amongst others. ACPC asked applicants, who must have at least five years of experience, to submit proposals for a live performance, online production, virtual presentation, or concept tour, all related to Asian issues.
Registration Period: 1 February – 31 March 2022
Workshop Period: 30 August – 22 September 2022
For more information, visit https://reurl.cc/Q75mY5
ACPC Open Call
TIFA: To Inspire. For All. 2022
The NTCH’s annual Taiwan International Festival of Arts (TIFA) kicked off its 14th edition on 17 February 2022 [Link to full programme].
TIFA 2022 features 18 performances, including Cloud Gate Dance Theatre’s Send in a Cloud, the highly anticipated work by Cloud Gate artistic director Cheng Tsung-long. Wang Jhao-Cian, a resident artist at the NTCH will present The Prawning Decameron, a story about a prawn-fishing farm that is converted into a quarantine hotel in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Acclaimed director Baboo Liao addresses the struggles of Asian migrant workers within the context of the pandemic in his play Artificial Hells. TAI Body Theatre of Taiwan and EkosDance Company of Indonesia present a cultural exchange through the double bill production Ita and Ari-Ari.
Like artists and festivals around the world, TIFA has embraced online technologies to address some of the practical restrictions related to travel. It will present an online Moon River 2.0 show by Dance Forum which combines Japanese pop culture, theatre and dance; the whodunnit show by Les Enfant Terribles, Sherlock Holmes: On Online Adventure, which combines live performance, immersive 360 technology and audience participation; Francesc Serra Vila’s Recall is a one-on-one online performance that looks at the human response to the pandemic and is carried out on the teleconferencing platform Google Meet. Colossus demonstrates how artists can collaborate from afar: Australian choreographer Stephanie Lake has developed a show with 50 Taiwanese dancers, providing direction via remote online connection.
TIFA – To Inspire. For All. 2022.
NTCH Sustainable & Inclusive Arts Conference 2022
The NTCH hosted its Sustainable and Inclusive Arts Conference on 20 and 21 January 2022, as part of its ongoing initiative to serve as an environmentally conscious and sustainable theatre. For this online conference, invited guests from Taiwan, US, UK and Germany shared their experiences and knowledge with a hundred participants representing various arts organisations across Taiwan. At the conference, the NTCH also shared its inclusive practices, which include “easy read” programme brochures, audio description services and theatre “touch tours.” Topics at the conference also included coordination between artists and venues for inclusive productions and bringing the concept of inclusiveness into the creative process.
The guest speakers from aboard were John McGrath, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Manchester International Festival in the UK; Betty Siegel, the Director of VSA and Accessibility of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the US; Nele Jahnke, a stage director/dramaturg from Germany; and Maja Polk, Artistic Production Manager with a focus on accessible theatre at Münchner Kammerspiele in Germany.
NTCH Sustainable & Inclusive Arts Conference 2022
NTCH Digital Transformation Initiative
The past few years have shown the importance of having a stable internet connection, particularly for artists and venues engaged in creative endeavours online. Last year, with the support from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the NTCH built a private 5G network around its campus to facilitate several projects, which included Lunatic Town, an experimental performance combining theatre, online streaming and multi-player online gaming.
Meanwhile, the NTCH is pleased to announce that it has begun developing an AR glasses rental service, with the aim of providing audiences at NTCH with subtitles during multilingual performances. It is also in the process of installing a multiple-view camera system in the theatre facilities to accommodate high-resolution video recording and provide a new way of watching for audiences with accessibility needs during the performances. These efforts are part of the NTCH’s ongoing “digital transformation initiative” and we look forward to keeping everyone updated on the progress of these projects.
NTCH digital transformation initiative