Jose Kalathil
Five Taiwanese troupes, who are performing at the on-going 67th Edinburgh Festival Fringe, are receiving wide acclaim from the public as well the press. They are Taipei City-based Jade and Artist Dance Troupe, Tainan City-based Ten Drum Art Percussion Group and Feng Dance Theatre, Taiwan’s first Paiwan dance troupe, Tjimur Dance Theatre and Hualien County-based Langasan Theatre.
Every year, thousands of performers take to hundreds of stages all over Edinburgh. From big names in the world to unknown artists looking to build their careers, they perform at the festival that includes theatre, comedy, dance, physical theatre, circus, cabaret, children’s shows, musicals, opera, music, spoken word, exhibitions and events. In 2013, there were 45,464 performances of 2,871 shows, making it the largest ever arts festival. This year’s festival witnessed 3,193 performances till the concluding day on August 25th.
“We expect a steady stream of festival-goers to continue enjoying the performances right up to the last day of Fringe,” said a Taiwan Ministry of Culture (MOC) official.
“Eggs of Blessings” by the Jade and Artist Dance Troupe recreates the folk customs of Taiwan in the 1940s. The mix of acrobatic gymnastics, contemporary dance and tradition was given a four-star review by influential Scottish cultural journal The Skinny.
Ten Drum Art Percussion Group is the most world-savvy of the five having performed in international events including Avignon Off. Its “Impression of Taiwan” show has wowed U.K. dailies such as Irish Examiner, The Guardian, London Evening Standard and The Press Journal.
Feng Dance Theatre’s “Kid Box” projects the intimate mother-child relationship through the interaction of light and dance, earning a rave review from online newspaper The Huffington Post.
“Kurakuraw Dance Glass Bead” another four-star performance lauded by The Scotsman, is a contemporary production by Tjimur Dance Theatre. The aboriginal legend retold in dance transcends the barriers of language and has won the approval from Morag Deyes of Dance Base, artistic director of Scotland’s National Centre for Dance.
Langasan Theatre from eastern Taiwan’s Hualien County features the most culturally diverse members of all Taiwan Season teams. Comprising artists, farmers, labourers and scholars of Amis, Hakka, Holo, Rukai and Sakizaya origins, Langasan Theatre and their “Misa-Lisin” were singled out by Fringe Review and The Times as the act to watch at this year’s festival.
Combining chanting, myth, performance art and ritual, “Misa-Lisin” boasts an environmentally aware and simplistic performing style which resulted in a nomination for this year’s Sustainable Practice Award at the Fringe.
The MOC said it expects Taiwan Season to help the five companies cement their place on the international stage while demonstrating Taiwan’s rich cultural background and world-class pedigree in contemporary dance and physical theatre.
The Fringe story dates back to 1947 when eight theatre groups turned up uninvited to perform at the (then newly formed) Edinburgh International Festival, an initiative created to celebrate and enrich European cultural life in the wake of the Second World War. Not being part of the official programme of the International Festival didn’t stop these performers – they just went ahead and staged their shows on the ‘Fringe of the Festival’ anyway – coining the phrase and our name ‘(Edinburgh) Festival Fringe’. Year on year more and more performers followed their example and in 1958 the Festival Fringe Society was created in response to the success of this growing trend.
The Society formalised the existence of these performances, provided information to artists, published the Fringe programme and created a central box office. Its constitution was written in line with the ethos that brought these theatre companies to Edinburgh back in 1947: that the Society was to take no part in vetting the festival’s programme. To this day that policy remains, and anyone with a story to tell can perform at the venue.
