NTCH Taiwan Week Online 2021

Taiwan International Festival of Arts (TIFA) 2021 at the National Theater & Concert Hall (NTCH) is entering its second half with highly anticipated new productions: River / Cloud (2 – 4 April), the 40th production by Stan Lai, the most renowned theater director in Chinese speaking world; A Thousand Stages, Yet I Have Never Quite Lived (9 – 11 April), a collaboration of the celebrated Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen and Beijing Opera diva Wei Hai-min; the ambitious five-hour epic work Palaces by Our Theatre, a group dedicated to contemporary theatre in Taiwanese.  

In A Thousand Stages, Yet I Have Never Quite Lived (9 – 11 April), Ong Keng Sen draws from major events in the life of the legendary Beijing Opera diva Wei Hai-min, to show how the singer’s art form developed amid social change on this island nation. (Photo by Chen You-wei)

Dance productions, in the meantime, demonstrate the ambition and explosive creativity of the established artists, such as Bulareyaung Pagarlava, Huang Yi and Chou Shu-yi, who have likewise raised attention of world stage. 

After returning to his home village and training aspiring indigenous youth dancers for five years, Bulareyaung conceived Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain to reflect the ultimate journey for any person — the journey of one’s self. (Photo by Rungiya Kao)

Choreographer Chou Shu-yi and theater 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. (Photo by Chen Chang-chih)

In Little Ant & Robot: A Nomad Cafe, Huang Yi and his robotic friends will team up to run a cafe, unveiling a harmonious new world shared by man and robot. (Photo by Summer Yen)

Along with performing arts communities across the world, the NTCH is adapting to the challenges of a global pandemic. To this end, the NTCH is launching Taiwan Week Online 2021, a virtual event that follows Taiwan Week, a performing arts platform that takes place in Taipei in April.   

The main mission of Taiwan Week is to share the best of Taiwan’s contemporary performing arts and culture with the international community.

While the current pandemic makes it difficult for visitors to come to Taiwan, the NTCH hopes that this virtual edition can fill the gap.    

Taiwan Week Online features ten stage shows in the fields of theatre, dance, and music, which takes place in April. These performances will be recorded on video and made available for viewing during Taiwan Week Online 2021 in June. As Taiwan Week was also conceived as an international networking event, it will host live video discussion forums that aim to connect local artists with curators and performing arts organisers from around the world.   

Taiwan Week Online 2021: June 16-27

Taiwan Week Online 2021 Programmes  
16 – 27 June 2021 Online Viewing 

Full-length video or trailers of ten productions are available to curators and programmers online through registration. 

Dance 
Not Afraid of the Sun and Rain, Bulareyaung Dance Company 
Little Ant & Robot: A Nomad Café, Huang Yi Studio 
The Centre, Chou Shu-yi × Cheng Chih-chung 
Lunar Halo, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan 
 

Theatre 
A Thousand Stages, Yet I Have Never Quite Lived, Ong Keng Sen × Wei Hai-min 
Palaces: Outside In and Inside Out, Our Theatre 
Inside Out: A Tale of Allure and Enchantment, Shan Puppet Theater × Hong Puppet Theater × Wang Chia-ming 
Fox Tales, GuoGuang Opera Company

Music 
i-village Trilogy, Sheng-Xiang & Band 
Luminous Shadow, Wang Pei-yao 
23 – 24 June 2021 Online Forum 

Two public online forums joined by prestigious curators and Taiwanese artists. 

Dance forum on 23 June 
Panelists: Didier Deschamps (Théâtre National de Chaillot), Alistair Spalding (Sadler’s Wells) 
Guest artists: Bulareyaung Pagarlava, Huang Yi, Chou Shu-yi

Theatre Forum on 24 June 
Panelists: Nils Haarmann (Schaubühne Berlin), more panel speakers to be confirmed soon.  
Guest Artists: Ong Keng Sen, Wang Chia-ming, Wang Jhao-Cian

To read more, please click on Taiwan Online 2021. We welcome all to join us online and sincerely hope you enjoy the programmes.