衛武營國家藝術文化中心 National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying)

A whale appears, starting the cosmos;

A whale calls, silencing the ocean;

A whale falls, triggering the force of life.

The Strange Drifting Adventure of Whale Island Sets Sail

A tsunami swallowed an island; the sole survivor was a girl named Nana, who huddled adrift upon a deadly quiet garbage pile with her doll Booboo. Kuro, the spirit of the Black Stream ocean current in the western Pacific, dropped in to tell the two friends an ancient story...

Once upon a time, there was a verdant, rich island, blessed by the gods with crisscrossing mountains, plains and valleys. Kuro met Bixi, deity of a volcanic island off of the island's eastern shore, who received an oracle to foster Kun and Ni, twin sisters born of the spiritual energies between heaven and earth. Just as the way the two halves of a whale's brain function in alternating turns, the twins are complementary opposites of each other: one quiet, one active, always in harmony. That is, until one day a faraway whale call awakened the longing for the ocean within the sisters. Faced with the breaking down of what she believed to be her predestined path, Bixi decided to risk it all...

Inspired by and based around the geological imagery of Taiwan, Whale Island incorporates scientific intrigue as part of its narrative, to create a mythical epic akin to the Book of Mountains and Seas, but specific to Taiwan.

The production team, comprised of members from various disciplines called out by La Cie Maxmind and Puppet and Its Double, has worked over these three years to not only expand the realms of Nanguan, Beiguan and puppetry, but also create a whole new approach to storytelling through the dramatic central throughline of land and environment. Taking an intriguing geological perspective, the project hopes to entice the audience to sing along with the sounds of Nanguan and Beiguan, and enjoy this time-and-space-traveling island fantasy.

  Creative and Production Team  

Director｜LEE Yi-hsiu

Composer of Nanguan and Beiguan music｜HSU Shu-hui

Playwright｜SHIH Ju-fang

Co-playwright｜WEI Yu-chia

Puppetry Director｜CHENG Chia-yin

Dramaturg｜CHANG Chi-feng

Performers｜CHU An-li, LIU Yu-jane, CHEN Hsin, Datian, TSUEI Tai-hao, CHIU Mi-chen, LU You-tien, FENG Wen-hsing, HUANG Ssu-wei, YANG Bo-wei

Musicians｜HSU Shu-hui, LIAO Han-yu, LIU Xin-long, YANG Ching-yi

Producer｜TSAI Ching-fang

Assistant Director  & Movement Coach｜Eddie chun-hui LIN

Lighting Designer｜KAO I-hua

Scenic Designer｜HSIEH Chun-an

Costume Designer｜LIN Yu-yuan

Puppet Design｜YU Meng-ju

Sound Designer｜WU Siou-ming

Executive Producer｜HSU Pei-ching

Publicity Manager｜TIEN Chia-yu

Language Coach - Spoken Taiwanese｜TĒNN Sūn-tshong

Translator｜Wei-ming Liu Egelman

Stage Manager｜HUANG Kuo-feng

Assistant to Director｜CHIU Mi-chen

Rehearsal Assistant｜LIN Yu-shiuan

Trailer Maker｜TshioTiô Studio

Graphic Design｜Onion Design

Photographor｜Sapere aude Photography

Co-production｜National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying), National Taichung Theater, National Theater & Concert Hall 

Special Thanks: Trend Education Foundation

  Team Introduction  

Co-Production Team｜La Cie MaxMind

Artistic Director LEE Yi-hsiu and Nanguan/Beiguan composer HSU Shu-hui are the central creative forces of La Cie MaxMind. It is the company’s mission to inject diverse sources of creative energy into traditional Nanguan and Beiguan music with material garnered from the rich multicultural grounds of Taiwan; and through this process, to establish an affecting new paradigm of theatrical form. The company’s work is often inspired by Taiwanese culture and merging of traditional and contemporary artistic forms and elements to demonstrate the Taiwanese artistic characteristics and humanistic thinking.

Co-Production Team｜Puppet & Its Double

Since its establishment in 1999, Puppet & Its Double strongly believes that “everything can be a puppet,” as it makes great effort to expand the theatrical potentiality of puppetry in contemporary performing arts and to welcome every possible interdisciplinary experiment.  It is particularly known for its exquisite puppet-making and design.  By bringing actors and puppets together on stage and adopting a poetic theatrical language, it visualizes a world of imagination beyond what humans can do and fascinates us with its thought-provoking fantasy and transformative identities.

Playwright｜SHIH Ju-fang

SHIH Ju-fang works full-time as a playwright and part-time as Assistant Professor at National Taiwan University's Department of Drama and Theatre.

With a knack for tailoring the play to its subjects, SHIH is uniquely open to writing inspirations from all corners. That said, she is especially intrigued by historical events, and is wide-ranging in her genre-crossing interdisciplinary forays. Her plays, melding diverse creative textures and cultural profundity all at once, often become nurturing grounds for innovative theatrical forms. SHIH's works have repeatedly received commissioning and publication grants from the National Culture and Arts Foundation; and have been nominated for the Taishin Arts Awards, the Golden Bell Awards, and the Golden Melody Awards for Traditional Arts and Music. In recent years, she has been obsessed with writing about Taiwan. Her 2019 play "Me, Myself and I" brought Taiwanese politician and activist LIN Xian-tang's story to the traditional opera stage, breaking through the narrative limitations of theatrical genres. She was then invited to curate the 2022 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival.

WANG Anqi, Artistic Director of GuoGuang Opera Company, praised SHIH for expanding the scope of her work beyond traditional opera; and cultural critic David Der-wei Wang called SHIH "The best interpreter of contemporary Taiwanese traditional opera".

Photo © Sapere aude Photography 

Co-producation: National Kaoshiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying), National Taichung Theatre, National Theater & Concert Hall

Tour：

Taipei｜2023/5/5-5/7  National Theater & Concert Hall

Taichung｜2023/10/21-10/22 National Taichung Theatre