After a completely online edition last year, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2021 will be hosting a mixed program of digital and physical events, giving international performers and Fringe-goers a chance to participate in the action online. Embracing this hybrid format, the eighth edition of Taiwan Season will be going online once more to give Edinburgh Festival Fringe audiences an insight into the Taiwanese performing arts.
Supported by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, this year’s Taiwan Season will bring the magic of four performing arts companies to UK audiences through online performances in “A Glimpse of Taiwan”, whilst the Taiwan Season Online Symposium, “Connecting with Taiwan”, will share the expertise of Taiwanese and international industry professionals through online webinars.
“A Glimpse of Taiwan” will feature online screenings of a quartet of Taiwanese dance-theatre productions, including “The Back of Beyond” by Taigu Tales Dance Theatre, “Fighters” by Les Petites Choses Productions, Incandescence Dance’s “Touchdown” and Tjimur Dance Theatre’s “ai~ sa sa”. The four productions will be available through the Festival’s Fringe Player and can be reached on the Summerhall website from 6th August until the end of the Festival.
It will also be the second year featuring the Taiwan Season Online Symposium, after a successful debut last year saw the Symposium winning The Infallibles Award for “National Presence”, and attracting viewers from Europe and the United States to South America and Australasia. Entitled, “Connecting with Taiwan”, the Online Symposium will be available through ZOO TV, with four sessions over the days of 9th and 16th August that draw on Taiwanese and international expertise in a series of panel discussions and roundtables.
Kicking off on the 9th August at 11:00, the first webinar of the Taiwan Season Online Symposium, “International digital theatre roundtable” will be exploring theatre and performance as it’s delivered live and digitally, with moderation from Laura Kriefman, chief executive officer of Barbican Theatre, Plymouth and founder of Hellion Trace Ltd. Later in the day, at 14:00, will focus on the social impact and potential inclusivity of the arts in “Social Engagement in the Arts” – moderated by documentary filmmaker and curator of Green Island Human Rights Art Festival, Sandy Hsiu-chih Lo.
A week later, on 16th August at 11:00, moderator Gwen Hsin-Yi Chang, head of international partnerships at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts will be joined by an international panel of experts to discuss the modern circus in “Transforming Circus and Shaping its Future in Taiwan, Japan, the UK and Beyond”. At 14:00, the Taiwan Season Online Symposium will conclude with “Indigenous Artist Development – A Global Context”, a conversation on indigenous artistic expression, moderated by Head of Programming and Production of Pulima Art Festival and Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation, Cheng-Hua Chiang.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world’s largest arts festival, and will take place between the 6th and 29th August 2021, both online and in-person due to the pandemic. “This year’s Taiwan Season will not only look at how artistic production processes have been affected by the pandemic,” remarked Dr. Chen Pin-Chuan, Director of the Cultural Division of the Taipei Representative Office in the UK, “it’ll also look at the breakthroughs it has led to in the world of performing arts, examining Taiwan’s own strengths and providing a reference for international cooperation”.
For more information about this year’s Taiwan Season, please visit: https://www.twseason-edfringe.com/