Launched in 2014, the Taiwan Season has become a hot tip at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe by showcasing a wealth of dance, theatre and live performance. This year – responding to the challenge of COVID-19, and working in tandem with the Fringe – the live platform is being replaced by an ambitious, month-long programme of virtual close encounters.
Spread across 16 sessions from August 4 to 28, and organised and funded by the Ministry of Culture, the Taiwan Season Online Symposium: ‘Connecting with Taiwan’ is a thrice-weekly series of scintillating artist interviews (Tuesdays, 1-1.45pm BST with repeats every Thursday) and in-depth webinars (Wednesdays and Fridays, 1-3pm BST).
The Tuesday sessions, accessible via Taiwan Season’s Facebook and YouTube, are brisk but revealing 45-minute interviews with the heads of the four dance companies that had been all set to present their work at the prominent Fringe venues Dance Base and Summerhall – until, that is, the world went viral. Those works are Touchdown (August 4), Boundless (August 11), Fighters (August 18) and The Back of Beyond (August 25). Below is some basic information on each production but Click here for more.
Aimed at forging new links with members of the global arts industry, the Wednesday/Friday webinars focus by turns on a handful of topics: venues and international exchange (August 5 and 7); disability arts (August 12 and 14); live art and interdisciplinary practice (August 19 and 21); and creating and/or curating indigenous work (Aug 26 and 28). Featuring a host of presenters and producers, curators and directors, researchers and educators, dancers and choreographers, composers and performances artists hailing from Taiwan, Scotland and abroad, these sessions are ideal for anyone curious about the current state of the arts in Taiwan – or keen to know how to tap into them. Click for more information and Register your place here.
In addition, the Fringe is hosting a Taiwan Season 2020 Showcase and Pitch (Monday, August 10, 11:00am-12:45pm BST). This one-off online event spotlights all four of the highly varied, tour-ready contemporary dance productions which would have been programmed at Dance Base and Summerhall in this year’s festival. The session will feature individual artist's pitches, a tantalising taster of each dance work and the chance to have a chat with your choice of choreographers in breakout rooms. This closed event is featured as part of the International showcase at the Fringe exchange, marketplace and are available only to those delegates who have been accredited with Fringe Central.
The four Taiwan Season 2020 shows are:
Taiwan Season: Touchdown
Hao Cheng’s mathematical background gives him a unique perspective on abstract ideas and flesh-and-blood performance. His dynamic, highly personal and proudly low-tech solo for Incandescence Dance merges popular science and the poetry of motion.
Taiwan Season: Boundless
Hung Dance’s hallucinatory ensemble work is like entering the mind of someone trying to exit a troubled dream. Although this intense, darkly imaginative performance flirts with traditional culture, the atmosphere is contemporary and complex.
Taiwan Season: Fighters
This buoyant work by Nai-Hsuan Yang’s Les Petites Choses Production is fierce fun. Five godly characters from classical Chinese literature spring to life in a fusion of hip hop, contemporary dance and folk-techno music.
Taiwan Season: The Back of Beyond
Tai Gu Tales Dance Theatre’s dancers merge Eastern cultural traditions and contemporary Western practices in a physical and spiritual journey of great power and sensitivity. This is an exceptional theatrical dream-ritual.
