The Taiwan International Festival of Arts, which is to start in Taipei on Thursday next week, is to feature more than 300 performances celebrating artistic adaptability during the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Theater and Concert Hall (NTCH) has said.
NTCH general and artistic director Liu Yi-ru (劉怡汝) described this years edition of the event, which has provided a stage to a diverse range of performers from home and abroad since 2010, as “a salute” to those who had been brave enough to stride forward and explore an unknown world amid the global pandemic.
The pandemic has affected the National Theater directly, with the venue forced to cancel or postpone nearly all shows of the festival’s 2020 edition after a musician tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after he had performed at a festival venue.
After in May last year causing the first-ever closure of the venue since its opening in 1987, the disease has also created disruptions this year.
On Jan. 6, the organizers announced that four of the festival’s shows produced by foreign artists would be canceled, including US artist Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music and Transverse Orientation, the latest production by Greek stage director Dimitris Papaioannou.
The National Theater said the cancelations were due to the sustained COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed by governments around the world, which had made travel for artists difficult.
Nevertheless, the festival, which runs through May 18, would this year include more than 300 performances of 10 physical and four digital shows.
Liu said that the arts sector had been left especially vulnerable by the pandemic, but added that those working in the industry had not been defeated.
Wang Jhao-cian (汪兆謙), artistic director of the Chiayi-based troupe Our Theatre (阮劇團), which is known for staging classic stories in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), said the disease had led to changes in the troupe’s creative process.
Speaking about the group’s latest work, The Prawning Decameron, which is to be performed in April, Wang said it was the first time that the troupe has incorporated traditional puppets and video into a work.
Drawing inspiration from Renaissance writer Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, a collection of novellas set in plague-ravaged 14th century Italy, Yeung Fai (楊輝), a puppet master and codirector of The Prawning Decameron, said the work focused on the ongoing pandemic, and human nature amid a volatile and chaotic world.
Cheng Tsung-lung (鄭宗龍), artistic director of award-winning contemporary Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, said that being forced to work from home for several months last year enabled him and his team to spend more time being with themselves and inspired their latest work, Send in a Cloud, which is to be shown at the Taiwan International Festival of Arts from April 15 to 17.
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