Gang-a Tsui Theater
The Gang-a Tsui Theater was founded in 1993. Its stage debut A Tour of Nanguan was a trail-blazing work that combined traditional Liyuan opera with modern theater and successfully presented new opportunities for the transmutation of traditional art in modern society, which infused novel elements into traditional Nanguan and became the paragon of “transforming traditional art by giving it contemporary zeitgeist.” In 2002, it delivered its original piece Whispering from the Rear Garden at the arbor in the Lin Family Mansion and Garden. In 2006, it cooperated with the Japanese theater Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo in producing Zubun Elopes with the Ghost, a performance that incorporated the element of Butoh and won the fifth Taishin Arts Award. In 2010, it organized a workshop in collaboration with Eugenio Barba, the head of Odin Teatret, which unlocked greater potential of traditions. The Gang-a Tsui Theater’s recent primary productions included the remaking of Zubun Elopes with the Ghost at the 2020 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival and Passage to Lo-Jin, a theatrical piece delivered in 2018 after its regrouping, which was also invited to the Festival OFF d’Avignon in 2019. The founder of the theater ZHOU Yi-Chang died on his way to Indonesia for arts in 2016. Its senior members CHEN Jia-Wen and WEI Mei-Hui re-registered the Gang-a Tsui Theater in Taipei in 2017, and now serve respectively as the director and deputy director. They not only strive to promote the beauty of Nanguan, but also perpetuate the former director’s ideal of modernizing Nanguan and imbuing traditional art with contemporary zeitgeist.