Friday, August 7, 2009

Taiwan - a cultural leader in styles of opera and dance

Ilan County is the home of the Koa-a-hi, a style of traditional opera that was started in 1910, and because of its robustness, it quickly spread, overtook, and replaced all previous styles of art song and theatre in Southeast Asia and China wherever there were communities of ethnic Han peoples who hosted and viewed these performances in conjunction with traditional religious practices and temple worship.

I-Lan is also the home of the Lan-Yang Dance Company, the most famous in Taiwan. Now one of its members has received international recognition. Lee Chen-wei (李貞葳), an I-Lan native, was recruited to perform with an internationally acclaimed dance company in Israel. We wish her well and hope that a successful career will bring Taiwan international respect and understanding as Tainan native Ông Kiàn-bîn 王建民 (usually transliterated into Mandarin as Chien-Ming Wang) has done through his career with the New York Yankees professional baseball team.

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