Two performance groups from Taiwan’s Tao tribe toured Europe May 24 to June 1, underscoring the government’s dedication to international promotion of the country’s Indigenous culture.
The Tao Culture and Performance Project tour was jointly supported by the Ministry of Culture, the Cultural Section of the Taipei Representative Office in the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria’s Vienna-based iKultur. Two groups, Orchid Island’s Sound of the Ocean performers and the 33rd Golden Melody Award shortlisted band Wild Thing performed in Vienna, Austria and Lithuanian capital Vilnius, as well as Jonava city.
Sound of the Ocean features two male singers and eight female dancers who performed the famous Hair Dance and Ceremonial Hat Dance to pure song. Wild Thing are a young band from Orchid Island whose unique style mixes their cultural inheritance with hard rock.
iKultur curators Lin Weiya and Johannes Kretz have researched Orchid Island music and culture since 2007 and themed this year's project "Connection and Narrative," using music to showcase the dialogue between past and present Tao culture. The Tao Culture and Performance Project combines historic recordings collected by Academia Sinica and the Ethnomusicology Research Center in Paris, France, to display Indigenous spoken language in combination with contemporary art to preserve and develop Taiwan’s Indigenous tribal culture.
Sound of the Ocean concluded the tour with participation in the traditional song and dance festival We Are Happy in Jonava, Lithuania on June 1.(POC-E)
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