2022 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival – Fiercely Creepy, Dazzlingly Entertaining-Welcome to the Haunted Theatre!

Performance Date | 1 April 2022 to 5 June 2022 
Website | https://festival.ncfta.gov.tw/2022tttf/zh-tw  
Video Link | https://fb.watch/b5s9uGaBYl/  

In recent years, ghosts and spirits are becoming more and more popular among young people in Taiwan. These supernatural beings haunt everything from literature to art, from animations and games to VR/AR art. If you show no interest in them, you are behind times. 

In Traditional theatre, these beings are believed to provide a “supportive connection” to performing troupes. Troupes rely on ghosts or spirits as protectors when they travel between cities. Invisible though they are, ghosts are never absent in Traditional theatre. As the music begins and performers appear on the stage in their costumes, the apparitions are there, ready to help. They are a part of the team! 

Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival

For the 2022 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival, we have invited a number of troupes to fondle with the elements of goblins, spirits, and ghosts because their “presence” is essential in Traditional theatre. Going to one of these shows is one of the best ways to get yourself haunted! But I want to emphasise that even though we welcome all creative ideas, the land and the time we are living in should not be forgotten. Artists must express their art with consciousness of the land they are from and the time they live in. In this way, the tradition is kept alive, and an image of Taiwan that transcends the visible takes form. Based on this foundation, artists are welcome to draw inspiration from any of the ancient legends, beliefs, Taiwanese stories, and historical accounts. 

For the flagship production of the Festival, Ming Hua Yuan Tian Zi Art & Culture Group and Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group co-present The Unnamed Island, which is about the descendants of ghosts on the island of Taiwan, based on Shakespeare’s Tempest. A Bangle in Gold and Silver of La Cie MaxMind is an account of the White Terror, using nanguan and beiguan music to accentuate the ghostly atmosphere. Rom Shing Hakka Opera Troupe presents Anatomy of the Ghost Festival, which is adapted from the novella of the same name by Chung Chao-cheng about a Taiwanese soldier who lives the rest of his life in pain after returning from the battlefield. Taipei Seagull Theatre’s Who’s Koxinga? tells of a man called Zheng Chenggong meeting a ghost and finding his true self as a result. Taipei Puppet Theater’s Water Ghosts Go to a Play is about the miserable lives of ghosts confined in the water. Grassing Theatre’s You Have No Time incorporates the elements of the Edo period in Japanese history and presents the supernatural experience of two rakugo storytellers in Taipei City. Puppet & Its Double’s Paper Cut Dreamer 2.0 is a new creation incorporating the singing of Taiwanese opera. Our Theatre’s The Prawning Decameron is a puppet version of the classic tales taking place at a shrimp farm in southern Taiwan. Also notable are the GuoGuang Opera Company’s Journey Through Hell, The Golden Cangue, and Taiwan Bangzi Opera Company’s The Bound Dream. With the symbols of cangue and foot-binding, the two troupes depict how traditional Chinese women are deprived of voices and lapse into a distorted life. Journey into Lost Time of TWATUTIA of National Chinese Orchestra Taiwan is a mixture of Chinese music and new circus, through which the audience travels back to the heyday of Twatutia.