Taiwan Today

Taiwan’s dramatic arts have moved from traditional forms to a modern mix.

Taiwan’s dramatic arts were originally rooted in the life of ordinary people, had strong links with traditional festivals and temple rituals, and characteristically had folk culture elements devised to entertain both the gods and the audience. Performances have changed, however, as troupes try to keep pace with changes in society and work to remain relevant to modern audiences, says Tsai Hsin-hsin, a professor in the Department of Chinese Literature at Taipei’s National Chengchi University (NCCU).

Prior to the 1970s, Taiwan was still predominantly an agricultural society. Performing arts were mainly folk arts such as Taiwanese opera, glove puppetry and nanguan (southern style) or beiguan (northern style) opera, as well as Hakka tea-picking opera, points out Ju Tzong-ching, president of the Taipei National University of the Arts.

Taiwanese opera, which is considered one of the island’s locally developed dramatic genres, appeared in northeastern Taiwan’s Yilan region during the 19th century. During the period of Japanese rule (1895–1945), Taiwanese opera troupes moved from open-air stages in small communities and temples to indoor theaters. Performances by local opera troupes both in the theaters and outside temples are part of the collective memory of older generations of Taiwanese, Tsai Hsin-hsin says.

The Ming Hwa Yuan Arts and Cultural Group, established in 1929, is perhaps the most prominent of the few remaining professional Taiwanese opera troupes in Taiwan. Today, Ming Hwa Yuan’s leading actress Sun Tsui-feng is among the field’s most active performers. Other performers gained celebrity status in past decades, however. In 1962, Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV) began broadcasting, with a portion of its programming taken up by Taiwanese opera. In fact, at the time, TTV and the subsequent China Television Co. and Chinese Television System (CTS) each had their own opera troupes. Yang Li-hua, who is possibly the best known Taiwanese opera performer, first shot to stardom when she appeared on TTV from the late 1960s to the 1980s. Another well-known Taiwanese opera diva, Ye Qing, appeared on CTS’ Taiwanese operas from the late 1960s through the 1990s.

Shifting Indoors

Since the 1980s, outdoor Taiwanese opera shows have shifted from being part of religious festivals to modern performances equipped with a large stage, as well as professional lighting and set designs. Productions by Ming Hwa Yuan, for example, combine folk theater heritage with up-to-date cinematic and theatrical techniques. The change has occurred hand in hand with the recent promotion of local culture by the government. NCCU’s Tsai Hsin-hsin praises the modern style of Taiwanese opera, saying that it has been successful in winning back audiences and attracting younger generations to appreciate the art form.

Contemporary Legend Theater’s The Butterfly Dream from 2007
(Photo courtesy of Contemporary Legend Theater)

Along with Taiwanese opera, performances of glove puppetry continued to be popular during the 1970s. Before the arrival of television in Taiwan in the 1960s, puppet shows were common at nearly every festive occasion. Lee Tien-lu (1910–1998) and Huang Hai-tai (1901–2007) were two of Taiwan’s most renowned puppeteers. Lee established the I Wan Jan troupe in 1931. Works by I Wan Jan were known for their innovative sequences involving martial arts and acrobatic stunts, as well as their mix of modern slang with classical Chinese dialogue. Today, the troupe Lee founded still stages mostly traditional shows, while Huang’s troupe, Wu Chou Yuan, has changed with the times.

In a sense, the life of Huang Hai-tai mirrors the development of glove puppetry in Taiwan. Huang was the creator of popular glove-puppet drama The Scholar Swordsman, which was later made into a successful TV series in the 1970s by his son, Huang Chun-hsiung. Carrying on his father’s art form, Huang Chun-hsiung laid the groundwork for the jinguang or “golden light” approach to puppetry that is used on television in Taiwan and incorporates three-dimensional sets, popular music and lighting effects. Since then, Huang Hai-tai’s grandsons Vincent Huang and Chris Huang have consolidated the continuing presence of glove puppetry in popular culture by setting up Pili International, a cable television station devoted to puppet series, in the mid-1980s. They have even taken traditional puppetry to the silver screen, with the release of Wu Chou Yuan’s first film, Legend of the Sacred Stone, in 2000. The offerings on Pili have given rise to diverse styles of puppetry that appeal to both refined and popular tastes and across generations of viewers, Tsai Hsin-hsin says.

Peking opera and Kun opera are other performing arts that became popular throughout Taiwan. The two opera styles first appeared locally at the end of the Qing dynasty (1684–1895), but saw significant development on the island after 1949, when large numbers of performance troupes relocated from mainland China to Taiwan with the Republic of China government, says Wu Hsing-kuo, co-founder of the Contemporary Legend Theater (CLT). As early as the Japanese colonial period, professional Peking opera troupes based in Shanghai and Fuzhou City in mainland China came to Taiwan to stage performances, says Tchen Yu-chiou, former chairwoman of the board of the National Theater and Concert Hall. As Wu Hsing-kuo explains, “Often local elites and rich businesspeople would invite Peking opera troupes to give a performance to celebrate a birthday, festival or the Lunar New Year in earlier days in Taiwan.”

Wang An-chi, the author of Fifty Years of Peking Opera in Taiwan, says that a troupe led by Gu Zheng-qiu laid the foundation for the development of Peking opera in Taiwan after the group arrived here from mainland China in 1948. The troupe’s performances were comprehensive displays of Peking opera in terms of singing, reciting, acting and martial arts, which are the art form’s four basic performing techniques, Wang says.

Peking opera performances in Taiwan reached their peak during the 1960s as troupes in the military flourished. More than 10 military troupes had been established by that time, including the well-known Dapeng and Luguang national opera troupes set up in 1950 and 1958 respectively, as well as the navy’s Haiguang Chinese Opera Troupe. The military troupes, along with the National Fu Hsing Dramatic Arts Academy (now National Taiwan College of Performing Arts), which was established in 1957, nurtured many major Peking opera performers.

CLT’s Wu Hsing-kuo, who performed with the Luguang troupe for 13 years, says that the companies provided entertainment for military personnel, as well as gave public performances at the Armed Forces Cultural Center in Taipei. Many of the troupes focused on maintaining traditional training rather than innovation, however, and as a result, began to lose younger audiences. During the 1970s, the genre underwent a steep decline as various entertainment alternatives appeared throughout society while Peking opera failed to keep pace with contemporary tastes, author Wang An-chi says.

In response, several Peking opera troupes formed with the intention of updating the art form and recapturing local audiences. The Lan-ling Drama Workshop is one such group that combines traditional and modern elements. The workshop, established in 1977 by Wu Jing-jyi, was Taiwan’s first theater group to stage a traditional Chinese opera in modern colloquial language. Another group was CLT, which was established in 1986 with the similar aim of reviving the popularity of Peking opera. CLT’s works fuse Peking opera with Western theater and the company has since staged acclaimed adaptations of William Shakespeare’s King Lear, Macbeth, The Tempest and Hamlet, as well as the Greek tragedy Medea.

Wu Hsing-kuo recalls that the Little Theater Movement started in the 1960s by dramatist Li Man-kuei brought Western styles and modern performing arts into Taiwan’s drama sector. Also during the 1960s and 1970s, as Taiwan enjoyed surging economic growth, many artists returned to the island from their studies or work overseas and went on to establish their own performing groups. One well known example is the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, which was formed in 1973 by Lin Hwai-min after his return to Taiwan from the United States.

Returning with Ideas

Lin’s brand of modern dance draws on traditional Chinese theatrical arts. The troupe has become Taiwan’s premier dance company, gaining a devoted domestic audience and international acclaim. “[The troupes started by returnees] introduced new ideas and techniques to performing arts, so that Western and modern performance styles started to appear during that time,” Taipei National University of the Arts’ Ju Tzong-ching says.

The International New Aspect Cultural and Educational Foundation, formed by Hsu Po-yun and Fan Men-nong in 1978, is another pioneer in the theater world. New Aspect’s contribution has been to invite overseas arts groups to perform in Taiwan and in 1980 it also held the island’s largest-ever international arts festival. In promoting its art events, the foundation has helped to develop Taiwan’s cultural environment. “We benefited greatly from New Aspect by being able to appreciate those fascinating foreign arts groups,” Wu Hsing-kuo says. The work undertaken by Lan-ling and New Aspect also helped set the stage for the establishment of several leading theaters in the mid-1980s, such as the Performance Workshop founded by Stan Lai in 1984 and the Ping-Fong Acting Troupe founded in 1986. 

Ju Tzong-ching observes that since the growth of Taiwan’s economy and lifting of martial law in the 1980s, a rich variety of performing arts groups has sprung up during the past few decades. Ju says although some groups still struggle with funding, on the whole the environment for performing arts is quite promising. The opening and closing ceremonies of the World Games in Kaohsiung and the 21st Summer Deaflympics in Taipei in 2009, for example, emphasized performing arts and brought many local groups international attention, he says. Moreover, in January 2010 the Legislative Yuan passed the Act for the Development of Cultural and Creative Industries, which will provide help for related organizations and individuals, especially in terms of future training.

Write to Vicky Huang at powery18@mail.gio.gov.tw