Eight years after the dance studio of Taiwanese dance legend Tsai Jui-yueh (
Addressing an audience at the opening ceremony held on the front lawn of the building yesterday afternoon, President Chen Shui-bian (
The facility was named the "Rose Historic Site" to signify Tsai's passion and love for dance.
"It shows our respect for the mother of Taiwan's modern dance and her love for her passion, which is like the love of a mother for her child," Chen said.
Chen said he had the honor of meeting Tsai in 1997 when she returned home from Australia for a visit. During their conversation, Chen, who was Taipei mayor at that time, said that he suddenly realized how scarce performing venues were in Taipei.
Tsai inspired him to take more interest in the art of dance and strengthen his resolve to promote Taiwanese art, he said.
The Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Club, formerly called the China Dance Club (中華舞蹈社), was Taiwan's oldest modern dance studio. It witnessed the personal plight of Tsai and her family during the political turmoil over the past decades.
Tsai began her dancing and teaching career in Taiwan in 1946 at the age of 25.
In 1947, Tsai married poet Lei Shih-yu (
Tsai and her baby boy were forbidden to leave Taiwan with him, and that winter Tsai herself was imprisoned.
She established her dance studio in 1953 when she got out of jail. By the 1960s, the dance club had become an important venue for international dance exchanges.
Tsai emigrated to Australia with her son in 1983 because of what she called the stifling political atmosphere in Taiwan, and because her son was recruited as a professional dancer by the Australian Dance Theatre.
The city had originally planned to demolish the dance studio in 1994, but a conservation campaign launched by local artists led to its designation as a municipal historic site in 1999.
Located on Zhongshan North Road, Sec. 2, the Japanese wooden building burned down four days after it was designated a historic site, giving rise to suspicions of foul play.
After the fire, then Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) pledged that an investigation into the blaze would be completed within a month. No arrests were made. An NT$18 million (US$562,500) reconstruction project was launched and was completed in November 2003.
Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Foundation (蔡瑞月文化基金會) was awarded the operational contract for the site.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
A Taiwanese software developer has created a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model to help people use AI without exposing sensitive data, project head Huang Chung-hsiao (黃崇校) said yesterday. Huang, a 55-year-old coder leading a US-based team, said that concerns over data privacy and security in popular generative AIs such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek motivated him to develop a personal AI assistant named “Mei.” One of the biggest security flaws with cloud-based algorithms is that users are required to hand over personal information to access the service, giving developers the opportunity to mine user data, he said. For this reason, many government agencies and
Taiwan has recorded its first fatal case of Coxsackie B5 enterovirus in 10 years after a one-year-old boy from southern Taiwan died from complications early last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. CDC spokesman Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) told a news conference that the child initially developed a fever and respiratory symptoms before experiencing seizures and loss of consciousness. The boy was diagnosed with acute encephalitis and admitted to intensive care, but his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he passed away on the sixth day of illness, Lo said. This also marks Taiwan’s third enterovirus-related death this year and the first severe
RSS