国際交流基金 The Japan Foundation Performing Arts Network Japan

Presenter Topics プレセンタートピックス

Sep. 5, 2019

Taipei Arts Festival opens (Aug. 3 – Sept. 8, 2019)

Since 2018, Singapore-born Tan Fu Kwen has been the festival’s Chief Curator and has drawn attention with his efforts to introduce Asian contemporary performing arts from an international perspective. This year, he chose the festival theme of “I (do not) Belong to You” and selected the program with a focus on works that are not from single orientation but works that deal with the questions of how, within the context of multiple human relationships, ambiguities come to exist, how they are negotiated, how they propagate and how they are performed.

The festival’s opening performance this time was Indonesian choreographer Jecko Siompo's Before/Step/After performed by the Taiwanese dance group Les Petites Chose Production using a choreographic language that shares and “open source” to compose the work with people around the town. Another work based on the same concept of creations that are not the work of a single artist, Jérôme Bel took the concept of one of his representative works, The Show Must Go On and turned it over to artists Chen Wu-Kang and Yeh Ming-Hwa to create a Taiwan version.

Other works included the solo piece Princess by Philippine choreographer Eisa Jocson, Bunny by Singaporean choreographer Daniel Kok and Luke George, Indonesian choreographer Eko Supriyanto’s Salt, and Korean performance artist Geumhyung Jeong’s Oil Pressure Vibrator. These works combined to give a good picture of what’s going on today in Asia’s contemporary performing arts.

Festival Outline
Organized by the City of Taipei, this arts festival has been held every summer since 1999. From 2012, KENG Yi-Wei has been the artistic director. In recent years, the city of Taipei has attracted international attention with its pursuit of projects aimed at creating a “City of Culture” with activities such as renovating historical buildings with art by creating the Huashan 1914・Creative Park and building the new Taipei Performing Arts Center, all as part of a national program to strengthen the arts and culture industry.

Taipei Arts Festival
https://www.artsfestival.taipei/index.aspx