At a small theater on Taipei's west side, Taiwan's foremost puppeteer Chen Xi-huang (陳錫煌) adds a few finishing touches to his glove puppets while the Turkish shadow puppet master Cengiz Ozek discusses how to present the show with stagehands and Robin Ruizendaal, art director of Taiyuan Puppet Theater Company (台原偶戲團).
Fittingly, the international collaboration is about an adventure on the silk road, the ancient cultural highway linking Asia and Europe, as artists and musicians from Taiwan, Turkey and the US contribute their inspiration to the interdisciplinary production combining Taiwan's glove puppet and Turkish shadow puppet theaters, live performances and large shadow screen performances directed by Larry Reed, founder of the Shadowlights Company of San Francisco. (see story below.)
Silk Road (絲戀) tells of the story of two sisters traveling through the silk road from China to Istanbul to find a magical harp that charms silkworms to produce the most beautiful colored silk in the world. From mountain, desert to oasis and spice fair, the girls encounter all kinds of exotic animals, magicians, human traffickers, belly dancers, poets, sages and hobgoblins on their journey.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF TAIYUAN PUPPET THEATER COMPANY
To Ruizendaal and Ozek, the show is a theatrical celebration and exploration of the ancient cultural exchanges that have left an indelible imprint on today's world. "One of my key interests for the play is to see the shared affinity of puppetry traditions in China, Turkey, Egypt and Taiwan," said Ozek, art director of Istanbul International Puppet Festival.
A unique and innovative experiment, the production is presented on three stages, one designed for actors, the other two for glove and shadow puppetry. Reed builds on this with his light show, that creates a world of amazing shadows, overlapping images and the illusion of depth.
As for the music, Taiwan's award-winning composer Li Che-i (李哲藝) will team up with Turkish musicians Binnaz Celik and Gunay Celik to stage live performances of the original score mixing Turkish folk songs and traditional Chinese music.
"Our biggest challenge is to integrate all the diverse elements into one coherent play," said Ruizendaal, adding that the production is a first-time attempt to every one involved.
Also new is the ensemble's attempt to offer a lively introduction to the ancient theatrical tradition in Turkey, its exquisite marionettes made out of camel skin and the beloved puppet figure Karagoz, a playful jester who undergoes different transformations in different stories that come from the grassroots culture as a manifestation of the people's voices, ideas and lives.
Having studied shadow puppet theater since age 11 and played Karagoz for the past 30 years, Ozek is excited to bring life to his favorite character not only through his accomplished puppetry art but as a real human performance on the stage. "I always feel myself as Karagoz. In the shadow puppet theater, I am connected with Karagoz with two sticks, but now for the first time, I am Karagoz," said Ozek, who will bring this creative production to Istanbul International Puppet Festival in May.
Feb. 17 to Feb. 23 “Japanese city is bombed,” screamed the banner in bold capital letters spanning the front page of the US daily New Castle News on Feb. 24, 1938. This was big news across the globe, as Japan had not been bombarded since Western forces attacked Shimonoseki in 1864. “Numerous Japanese citizens were killed and injured today when eight Chinese planes bombed Taihoku, capital of Formosa, and other nearby cities in the first Chinese air raid anywhere in the Japanese empire,” the subhead clarified. The target was the Matsuyama Airfield (today’s Songshan Airport in Taipei), which
China has begun recruiting for a planetary defense force after risk assessments determined that an asteroid could conceivably hit Earth in 2032. Job ads posted online by China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) this week, sought young loyal graduates focused on aerospace engineering, international cooperation and asteroid detection. The recruitment drive comes amid increasing focus on an asteroid with a low — but growing — likelihood of hitting earth in seven years. The 2024 YR4 asteroid is at the top of the European and US space agencies’ risk lists, and last week analysts increased their probability
On Jan. 17, Beijing announced that it would allow residents of Shanghai and Fujian Province to visit Taiwan. The two sides are still working out the details. President William Lai (賴清德) has been promoting cross-strait tourism, perhaps to soften the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) attitudes, perhaps as a sop to international and local opinion leaders. Likely the latter, since many observers understand that the twin drivers of cross-strait tourism — the belief that Chinese tourists will bring money into Taiwan, and the belief that tourism will create better relations — are both false. CHINESE TOURISM PIPE DREAM Back in July
Could Taiwan’s democracy be at risk? There is a lot of apocalyptic commentary right now suggesting that this is the case, but it is always a conspiracy by the other guys — our side is firmly on the side of protecting democracy and always has been, unlike them! The situation is nowhere near that bleak — yet. The concern is that the power struggle between the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and their now effectively pan-blue allies the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) intensifies to the point where democratic functions start to break down. Both
RSS