In August 2017, the Taiwan Season will return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for a fourth consecutive year. Sponsored by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture, it will showcase some of Taiwan’s best performing arts, including dance, theatre, and puppetry through five engaging and uniquely individual shows.
Kuo-Shin Chuang Pangcah Dance Theatre, a dynamic all-female dance troupe from Eastern-Taiwan will perform 038, which asks what home might mean in an increasingly fast and anxious modern world. It has been described as a contemporary performance underpinned by a traditional spirit. It reflects the anxieties and uncertainties of coming home in search of ourselves and our roots.
Dance duet Chen-Wei Lee and Zoltan Vakulya will present Together Alone, a poetic dance performance which asks how we live together. Conjured by the pair’s real-life interactions, the performance sees both dance artists combine their different approaches to movement to explore the tensions, pleasures, sorrows, and reconciliations of two individuals trying to discover harmony.
Co-coism will stage Ever Never, a semi-autobiographical performance rooted in the personal journey of director Chien-Han Hung. Deeply affected by her father’s death and living away from home, Ms Hung finds the aircraft cabin a mysterious space where the past can be intercepted and forgotten memories rekindled and brought to life. In Ever Never, past and present collide and coalesce into delicate and heartfelt physical theatre.
The Sun Son Theatre will perform Heart of Darkness which fuses a variety of theatrical elements including bold physicality and feelings, evocative instrumentation and vocals to explore the inner self. The performance features long hair, symbolic objects, dance, music and ritualistic imagery as a means of emotionally examining a woman’s journey through life.
Puppet Beings Theatre will present The Backyard Story, in which clothes that competitive neighbours have hung out to dry magically come alive. Summoning the innocence of childhood and injecting a fresh vitality into children’s theatre, Puppet Beings Theatre combines contemporary and traditional puppet arts, inviting audiences of all ages to exert their imaginations.
