琵琶行外傳- Pi Pa Xing (A spin off version)

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Date: September 2017

Role: Writer, Director, Co-composer (with Eleanore Chen)

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Taipei Fringe Festival 2017

台北藝穗節2017

 

Award: ”10大佳作獎“ ”Top 10 Best Recommended Award“

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Why: The project was inspired from a poem called “Pipa Xing”, written by poet Bai Ju Yi (白居易) from the Tang Dynasty. The poem depicts an encounter between the poet himself and a once-glamorous-female-pipa-performer (pipa is a traditional Chinese musical instrument). In the meeting, she reminisced on her past as a famous and greatly idolized pipa entertainer, but the cruel “reality of life” had her lavish life style stripped away, ended up moving to a small village and married to a business man who’s hardly home. Without much detail from the poet about what “reality of life” actually complies, we decided to recreate backstory of the pipa player, to reimagine what happened, In other words, to create a spin off out of original poem.

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As same-sex marriage has been a social movement in Taiwan for over a decade, we decided to incorporate the theme into the story.

This is my first attempt on a “full mandarin” project, as well as a first collaboration with the talented composer, Eleanore Chen (who’s also a gifted pipa player). The show combines traditional musical instruments (Pipa, Erhu, Tao Di) with contemporary instruments (Keyboard, Flute, Acoustic & Electric guitar and Cajon) , accompanied by visual arts/animations prepared by myself.

Once again, this is still an early stage of the project as we continue to work on second and third versions~