Theatre of the Future: Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong in Conversation
Online via Zoom | Hybrid Panel Discussion|Four big cities, four creative and exciting theatre scenes. Where do they stand after more than two years of pandemic and how do they look at the much longed-for post-Corona era?
OnlineOnline|Taipei Performing Arts Center
Language Online event via Zoom: Chinese with simultaneous translation into English
Face-to-face event at TPAC in Taipei: Chinese
PriceFree of charge
The Goethe-Instituts in Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong bring together experts from their local theatre scenes on the hybrid stage. From the perspective of these four major East Asian cities, Vee Leong (Hong Kong), Jianjun Li (Beijing), Ophelia Huang (Shanghai) and Baboo Liao (Taipei) discuss current developments in contemporary theatre, the impact of the pandemic on the performing arts, international exchange and the significance of theatre in urban cultural scenes.
The pandemic still has the four cities in its grip to varying degrees and is having a corresponding effect on the event formats on site: While in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing the event will be held purely digitally and there are thus no limits to the number of spectators, in Taipei there will also be the opportunity to participate in the panel discussion on site. In Taipei, the event will take place at and in cooperation with the Taipei Performing Arts Center (TPAC), which will celebrate its grand opening in autumn 2022. In addition to Baboo Liao and Keng Yi-wei, moderator of the discussion, Vee Leong will also sit on the stage at TPAC.
Q&A: All audience members - both online and on site - are invited to ask the four theatre experts questions and discuss with them towards the end of the event.
Director of „Shakespeare's Wild Sisters Group“. He graduated from the graduate school of Theatrical Arts, TNUA, with a master's degree in directing. He was awarded the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship Award and participated in a residency program in New York City in 2018. He was an artist in residence at Cité internationale des arts in Paris in 2019.
Since his theatre directing debut in 1997, Baboo has directed some thirty productions, two of which have earned him the awards for Taishin Arts Awards for Annual Top 10 Performing Arts. He has been frequently invited to international exchange programs and performances, and as a prolific young director, he continues to maintain high visibility, receiving much attention from various fields. His work has been invited to perform in New York, Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen, Avignon and Seoul.
Curator, artist, and dramaturg from Shanghai. She currently works in Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre leading its international projects, and as Programme Director for ACT Shanghai Int’l Theatre Festival. Ophelia worked in British Council as well as dramaturg in multiple international performing arts projects such as Royal Court New Writing for Theatre in China. Her recent artistic creations include Galaxy Talk, Game#1 and MOTHERLAND, while other solo and collaborative works were presented in theatres and museums in Asia and Europe as well as international festivals such as Forest Fringe and AsiaTOPA. She also writes on performing arts and plays an active role in regional and local arts networks such as Asia Network for Dance. Ophelia received MAs from University of Warwick and University of Arts in Belgrade.
Independent theatre director currently based in Beijing, China. He is also the artistic director of THE NEW YOUTH GROUP. Graduated from The Central Academy of Drama with MFA (and BA) in Stage Design, Jianjun is recognized as one of the key directors/practitioners of Chinese avant-garde theatre. Jianjun’s signature process involves reconsidering theatre as an artistic medium. Such distinguished aesthetics can be found in many of his contemporary productions. Jianjun’s recent works received extensive discussion reflective cultural stand and aesthetic dimensions.
Main works: World on a Wire, Wuzhen Theater Festival（2022）; The Metamorphosis, Aranya Theater Festival（2022）; A Welder’s Flash, Beijing Fringe Festival(2020); A Brief History of Human Society, Wuzhen Theatre Festival (2019); Popular Mechanics, Wuzhen Theatre Festival (2018), Schaubuhne Berlin Festival of International New Drama (2019); A Man Who Flies Up To the Sky, Wuzhen Theatre Festival (2015), VIE Festival Italy(2016)，Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen Germany (2017).
Lecturer (Dramaturgy) of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She is writer-director in text-based and intermedia art making in Hong Kong and Taipei. Her work has also been seen in Taiwan, the UK and recently in The Netherlands. Dedicated to the research and practice of contemporary form and politics of text-based theatre making, she has also developed an interest in sound-based and durational performances, investigating socially charged topics in an independent spirit and from a feminist perspective.
Dramaturg of National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts-Weiwuying, visiting assistant professor of theatre arts at National Taipei University of Arts. He earned his Bachelor degree from the department of philosophy, National Taiwan University and studied mime in the Academy of Performing Arts, Music and Dance Faculty(HAMU) in Prague. He was the artistic director of Taipei Arts Festival (2012-17). He had won the first prize from Ni-Kuang Sci-Fi Award. He was awarded the Freundschaftsmedaille and Chevalier dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Now he is also the curator of Taoyuan Iron Rose Festival(from 2018) and the co-curator of Want to Dance Festival(from 2019). In 2020, he co-curated the exhibition Between Earth and the Sky : The Spiritual State of Our Times with Jo Hsiao in Taipei Fine Arts Museum. He has written the books including 80 Keywords for Cultural leadership. He translated the books from Kafka’s Letters to Felice, John Banville’s Prague Pictures, Peter Brook’s Empty Space and Christopher Balme‘s Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies.
