Art – Page 3 – Taiwan Insight

Time Travel Dialogue of Two Iconic Artists: Emily Carr (Canada) & Chen Cheng-Po (Taiwan)

13 June 2023 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Charlie Smith. Emily Carr (1871-1945), who grew up on the West Coast of Canada, made her mark with vivid paintings of local scenery. She depicted changes in the landscape of British Columbia, touching upon industrialization. Carr was strongly influenced by Fauvism, which was advanced by Henri Matisse, André Derain, and other artists in France. Similarly, Taiwanese artist Chen Cheng-po (1895-1947) devoted much of his career to painting the natural landscape in bold, vivid colours. His oil paintings touched upon industrialization in Taiwan, and he, too, was influenced by Fauvism.

Innovating Tradition: The Interdisciplinary Practice of “Bodehi” Glove Puppetry Theatre in Taiwan

3 March 2023 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Chih-Ching Chester Tsai. Bodehi, Budaixi, or literal translation cloth sack theatre (布袋戲), is a form of traditional puppetry theatre in Taiwan. It was brought to Taiwan by early immigrants from southeast provinces of China during the Qing Dynasty. It has since developed into a unique form of theatre infused with local style and would later grow into one of the unofficial symbols of Taiwanese culture.

The Intercultural Resonance between Taiwan and Q: A Night at the Kabuki (2022)

1 March 2023 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by An-Ru Chu. In the second half of 2022, when Taiwan was gradually relieved from the waves of omicron subvariant-induced outbreak, the country experienced an unprecedentedly large quantity of theatrical productions and cultural events since many of them should have been presented earlier but rescheduled because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, a Japanese staged play, Q: A Night at the Kabuki, broke National Theatre (NT) box office record in Taipei. NT sold 12,000 tickets in merely twenty minutes for the first time in thirty-five years. When applauding the artistic achievement of the play per se, most posts also mentioned the following two aspects: first, the strong emotions evoked by seeing one of the leading actresses, Takako Matsu, in person, which echoes how the show had extensively grabbed the media’s attention since last May.

2022 Taiwan Theatre Report: Coronavirus, Chaos, Challenges, and Changes

28 February 2023 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Yi-Ping Wu. How would people of the future think of the theatre of Taiwan in 2022? A year haunted by the Coronavirus pandemic? A year in which the international situation was overshadowed by the Russian-Ukranian war? What are some lessons we learned in the past year? Undeniably, 2022 was a rapidly changing and challenging year for the Taiwanese. As to the field of theatre, 2022, in my perspective, could be recognised as the year of “change” due to the following characteristics.

Visualizing Transnational Christianity in Cold War Taiwan: Traces and Possibilities

14 December 2022

Written by Joseph W. Ho. Visual cultures – distilled in materials as granular as individual photographs or as broad as cross-cultural ways of seeing war and peace – mediated relationships between image-makers, subjects, and audiences. In the process, people and images constructed modern imaginations of the present while looking toward uncertain futures existing between nations and Christian groups as well as local and international histories.

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