An international puppet theater festival, which plans to feature 123 shows by troupes from Taiwan and abroad, is to begin in Yunlin County next Saturday.
The Yunlin International Puppet Arts Festival is to run until Oct. 14 at the Agriculture Expo Park in Huwei Township (虎尾).
Among the performers are award-winning Taiwanese troupes, such as the Hsin Hsing Ku Puppet Show Troupe, Liao Wen-ho Puppet Show Troupe and Chen Wu Chou Palm Puppet Troupe.
Utervision Company Japan, Israel’s Far Theater, Thailand’s Phuket Marionette, Vietnam’s Baby Style Productions and other overseas troupes also plan to stage shows at the festival.
“To me, puppets are not only puppets. They are people,” Chen Hsi-Huang Traditional Puppet Troupe founder Chen Hsi-huang (陳錫煌) said.
“When I can’t fall asleep at night, I’ll examine my puppets closely and observe the way they walk, turn or raise their hands,” said Chen, who specializes in hand puppetry.
Chen is the oldest son of Taiwanese master puppeteer Li Tien-lu (李天祿). In 2009, he was certified by the Ministry of Culture as a “living national treasure,” or a preserver of important traditional arts in the puppetry category.
Ministry of Culture’s Department of Arts Development director Chang Hui-chun (張惠君) said she was surprised to learn that there are 102 puppet theater troupes in Yunlin’s 20 townships alone.
Puppet theater was first performed outside temples in Taiwan before it was brought to the TV screen and now to theaters, she said.
“It has become a cultural brand that represents Taiwan,” Chang said.
Yunlin County has been dubbed the hometown of Taiwan glove puppetry. By inviting international puppet artists, the Yunlin International Puppet Theater Festival, which began in 1999, hopes to enrich the puppet theater art form so that it can continue to develop and innovate.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
Military photovoltaic projects have been found to have used Chinese-made devices blacklisted by the government, including Huawei Technologies Co routers, the Ministry of National Defense’s Armaments Bureau said on Thursday. An ongoing investigation has identified the illegal use of 128 current transformers, two routers and a data reader at the Hungchailin Army Base, Pinghai Navy Base and Tri-Service General Hospital’s Songshan branch, it said. The devices were manufactured in the Chinese factories of German solar energy equipment supplier SMA Solar Technology, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Delta Electronics Co, Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei and Taiwanese industrial PC maker Advantech Co, the bureau said. The bureau’s
Hong Kong’s Andy Lau (劉德華) on Wednesday announced that he would perform in Taiwan for the first time since 2013, with four shows at the Taipei Arena from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3. The concerts are part of Lau’s upcoming “Today... is the Day” tour, which began in Shanghai yesterday. He is also to perform in Singapore and Malaysia as part of the tour. In a news release, Lau said it felt good to be able to rehearse his dancing and singing for the tour, even though he had to don a face mask. “Holding these concerts has been something I have
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash