The Taipei Performing Arts Centre is a stage for free expression
Amid a deepening crisis with China, a radical performance complex adds kudos to Taiwan’s cultural scene
As the People’s Liberation Army staged a fourth day of military drills around Taiwan, the self-governing island which China claims, theatrics of a different sort were unfolding in the capital, Taipei. The story of Xuanzang, a Chinese Buddhist monk who embarked on a 16-year pilgrimage from China to India in the seventh century was being acted out in “The Monk from Tang Dynasty”. Directed by an acclaimed film-maker, Tsai Ming-liang, the imaginative, avant-garde interpretation of the Chinese epic was appropriate to the setting: the Taipei Performing Arts Centre (tpac), a futuristic complex inaugurated on August 7th.
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