All Projects

Play Arts Festival

The Play Arts Festival continues its role as a place of gathering while welcoming new curators from Ming Baï Lab – Lee Ming-Chieh and Baï LEE – alongside choreographer Liu I-Ling. Entitled Masks Convention, this year’s festival explores the masks worn and perceived by different communities, as well as the challenges faced in contemporary society, through playful encounters and humorous rituals.

For its eighth edition in 2025, the Play Arts Festival centers on the "Sweet Spot"—a dynamic state of balance and resonance created through participation, game, and gathering. Shifting away from passive viewing, the festival invites audiences to generate their own sweet moments through personal choice, rhythm, and interaction with performers, spaces, and others. Featuring outdoor concerts, solo performances, hands-on workshops, immersive games, and live podcasts, the festival offers diverse opportunities for personal connection. By actively tuning in, participants explore how art creates sparks and define their own unique "sweet spots."

Aligning with the 2024 Olympic Games, the 2024 Play Arts Festival centers on the theme of "challenging limits" through various forms of "play." Inspired by the Olympic spirit that participation matters most, participating artists push the boundaries of performance, narrative, and audience engagement using chosen superlatives—ranging from the loneliest to the most dedicated. Featuring immersive storytelling, interactive performances, music, and theater podcasts, the festival invites audiences to actively participate. By pushing creative limits together, C-LAB fosters a dynamic space to celebrate artistic vitality and expand the horizons of performing arts.

Centered on "games" and "gathering," the 6th Play Arts Festival—SHOW ME A PLATE—explores land, slow living, and Taiwaneseness. Curated by Betsy Lan, the festival transforms serious topics like folk culture and environmentalism into accessible performances. Featuring market fairs, games, theater, music, and film, highlights include Southeast Asian bands, Taiwanese-language theater, interactive dance, and day-night collaborations around dining culture. Indoor programs offer a children’s plant-conservation electronic music party, mime theater, environmental board games, and film screenings. Together, these diverse practices redefine locality and showcase an alternative futurity.

Following the removal of C-LAB’s outer walls, the 2023 PLAYARTS Festival embraces the theme "All-Purpose Humanity" to rebuild post-pandemic interpersonal connections. The festival transforms the grounds into an open, interactive space with projects like non-artist performance curation by Jianguo Jade Market stallholders, competitive circus shows, and Hokkien storytelling. Additional highlights include family object theater, app-based interactive performances, improvisational body-space dialogues, and music shows co-curated with Wild Goose Run. Featuring paper airplane installations and an art slashie market, PLAYARTS invites audiences to explore how performing arts foster human connection.

Adapting to the pandemic, the Play Arts Festival moves to December under the theme "The Joy of Alchemy," using performing arts to bring warmth and positivity amidst new norms. The House Peace team leads comedy-focused mission games, solos, and music, alongside curated online dance and family programs, C-LAB's Music Oasis, and site-specific circus arts. Additional highlights include theatrical marketplace auctions, artist slashie booths, and live children's broadcasts. Blending online and offline experiences, the festival invites audiences to connect from a safe distance and share its uplifting joy.

Centered on "games" and "gathering," C-LAB's Play Arts Festival transforms the former Air Force Command Headquarters into a friendly, vibrant space for accessible performing arts. For its third edition, themed "eye-to-eye/transformation," the festival extends from indoor spaces to outdoor park areas following the removal of C-LAB's outer walls. Through interactive exhibitions, workshops, and experimental performances, the event supports emerging creators and invites audiences to observe, participate in, and co-create a unique artistic landscape.