Address:No. 201, Section 2, Wubin Road, Wujie Township, Yilan County 268, Taiwan
The 2013 Asia-Pacific Traditional Arts Festival organized by the National Center for Traditional Arts (NCFTA) will present a series of traditional performances from Oct. 5 and 13 at the NCFTA's Yilan headquarters.
To celebrate Asia's diverse heritage, the center has invited eight overseas performance groups to join in this year's celebrations. They will be divided into four pairs according to their cultural origins - i.e. Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam and Uyghur.
The Seoul-based National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts will stage three types of performances, including traditional Korean music, drama and dance. A group from Yanbian University's College of Art in mainland China's Jilin Province will also perform in Korean style, having practiced Chosun folk music from northeast China in three different vocal styles and traditional Chosun dance.
For the nomad theme, Mongol Altai from Mongolia will introduce the arts of the Mongolian people, including long song recitals, the morin khuu fiddle, khoomei overtone singing and the Bie biyelgee dance. As a comparison, Tuvan Theatre from the Tuva Republic will stage performances fusing traditional khoomei singing and new music styles by eight singers who can sing the five genres of traditional Tuvan singing.
Another theme of the festival's performances is Vietnamese art presented by Vietnam's Thang Long Traditional Bamboo Ensemble and China's Guangxi Jingzu Three Islands Traditional Arts Group. The Vietnamese ensemble will bring a wide variety of music genres, including traditional drama, court music, one-string zither music, bamboo zither solo and folk songs from Bac Ninh Province in northern Vietnam to the festival.
The Chinese group comprised of fishermen of the Jing people, who are ethnic Vietnamese, will sing and dance to unique Jing music. Their singers are known to be good at imitating different sounds of the one-string zither.
Turkic culture is also one of the featured themes at the festival. Both the Xinjiang Institute of the Arts from mainland China and Nodira Pirmatora Quintet from Uzbekistan will perform the 12 Muqams, the best-known musical mode in Uyghur music. The Uyghur Muquam of Xinjiang, which has been designated as an Intangible Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO, is an art form combining Arabic Muqams with traditional Uyghur music.
For ticketing information and more, please visit the NCFTA'sonline ticketing systemand theChinese-language event website.
