Were it not for the rows of audience seats, one could easily mistake the fern-adorned stage, with its giant rocks and waterfalls, for a scene taken from the movie Jurassic Park. The mist-covered set is authentically Taiwanese, and instead of dinosaurs, it is inhabited by a giant snake.
The 1,200 seats were fully occupied Nov. 24, with hundreds more people standing in line outside the Expo Hall of Taipei’s Yuan-shan Park there to see “The First Lily,” Taiwan’s first musical adapted from an aboriginal legend, featured at the 2010 International Flora Expo.
Recounting a love story between the Rukai tribe’s Princess Baleng and the Hundred-pace Snake King Kuleleele, who reigns over the mysterious Ghost Lake, the 40-minute show is performed three times a day, once in Mandarin and twice in the Rukai language—although none of the actors are Rukai.
A magic moment came when water, seeming to flow out of nowhere, suddenly flooded the stage, recreating the Ghost Lake right before the eyes of the audience. When a three-meter-tall mechanical snake later emerged amidst the heavy smoke, wows could be heard circulating the auditorium.
“We are making dreams come true on this stage,” said Huang Chih-kai, the show’s writer and director, overseeing the co-production by Ping-fong Acting Troupe, one of Taiwan’s modern theater pioneers, and Formosa Aboriginal Dance Troupe, a group dedicated to preserving the legacy of traditional song and dance.
Many Rukai legends, traditions and garments are inspired by the hundred-pace viper, often referred to with respect as “the Blessed One” and regarded as a guardian spirit, protecting the Rukai in their homeland.
Though the story of Baleng and the Snake King itself is ancient, Huang pursues new forms of expression in the musical. “A few years ago, when I saw the impressive musicals at Tokyo Disneyland for the first time, I was completely overwhelmed,” he recalled. “I never realized old fairytales could be retold so brilliantly with the help of modern stage techniques and special effects.”
He decided to give the legend a new look. Employing a hydraulic device underneath the stage, Huang is able to create the illusion of a lake in the theater; and with a meticulously crafted mechanic device, over 1,000 lily blossoms emerge around the lakeside within 10 seconds.
When Huang was first handed the task of producing for the International Taipei Flora Exposition over a year ago, he decided to do something with Taiwan’s unique aboriginal cultures. “The indigenous peoples live in a close relationship with nature, one that we have long been missing in our modern way of life,” he said.
Their respect for nature permeates their philosophy of life, death, love and war, as well as the rituals surrounding them, Huang said. “For the Rukai, humanity is but a tiny fraction of nature; our existence relies on maintaining a harmonious relationship with Mother Earth. It involves a long-term relationship of mutual sacrifice and mutual support,” he said.
Hence the play’s rich nature metaphors. Song lyrics, for example, liken the love between Baleng and Kuleleele to a big tree and its vines, or to rocks and the moss that grows on them.
“The Flora Expo is about exploring mankind’s relationship with nature,” Huang opined. While to city people nature means something that can be exploited and manipulated, to aborigines coexistence with nature is the only conceivable way of life, he said.
To get into the world of the Rukai, Huang and his production team ventured deep into the mountains of Wutai Township, Pingtung County, where the Ghost Lake legend originated. “At first the chief was suspicious of our intent,” Huang recalled. However, seeing their efforts to learn the story properly from the tribal elders, he finally opened up and gave his full support to Huang’s work.
His efforts touched another Rukai guru, Auvinni Kadresengane, who accompanied the troupe as Rukai language consultant. The 65-year-old Rukai poet and novelist is most celebrated for his lifework of preserving the tribe’s oral literature tradition.
On the first day of the group’s rehearsal, Auvinni called the entire crew together and gave each of them a hand-carved bamboo arrow. “You should listen to the voice deep in your heart; once you decide to do something, do it with full force. Just like this arrow, go straight forward and never look back,” the poet told them.
“His encouragement gave me the strength I needed to persist,” Huang recalled.
The group’s adaptation of the legend has resonated with expo visitors. Since its Nov. 6 premiere, the extravaganza has filled the house three times a day.
“We heard some people have watched it five times, and they keep coming back,” a proud Huang said. It is estimated that over 2.4 million people will have seen the show when its two-month run ends Jan. 4.
One Japanese viewer was so impressed by the show he wrote a letter to the expo’s administration asking that more information be offered in Japanese—“So I can introduce it to all my friends,” Huang quoted the fan as saying.
Being ethnically Han, Huang experienced internal conflicts as he worked with the Rukai legend. “Sometimes I felt I didn’t have the right to write a story that doesn’t belong to me,” he said. However, the urge for the tale to be seen finally outweighed his uncertainty, as he decided that the play is a creative rendering, rather than a cultural appropriation.
“My friends are all overjoyed to see this production so well received,” said Faidaw Fagod, director of Formosa Aboriginal Dance Troupe and the actor who plays Baleng’s father in the musical.
“Adaptations are fine,” said the 56-year-old choreographer from the Amis tribe, “as long as the authors respect the spirit of tradition.”
At the end of the show, when Princess Baleng and the Snake King disappear into the misty lake and the masses of white lilies emerge from the lakeside, it symbolizes that, at the end of the day, human beings are inseparable from nature, according to Huang.
The director hopes this production will also encourage more theater workers to get inspiration from aboriginal themes. “It’s a treasure trove not yet explored,” he said. (THN)
Write to Kwangyin Liu at kwangyin.liu@mail.gio.gov.tw