Online Author Talk: Taiwanese Writer CHI TA-WEI and Translator ARI LARISSA HEINRICH-- THE MEMBRANES on October 14 The Taipei Cultural Center and New York Public Library are pleased to co-present an Online Author Talk: Chi Ta-Wei about his novel, THE MEMBRANES. ♦Date Thursday, October 14, 2021, 7 - 8 PM (End times are approximate. Events may end early or late.) ♦Location Online Meeting via Zoom Register RequiredIn-Person: Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) Program Room 303/304 ♦Program The program moderator, Ariel Chu, will interview Ta-Wei Chi, whose novel The Membranes was published in English recently, and Ari Larissa Heinrich , who is the translator of the book. **This event is held both online via Zoom and in-person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library . The author, translator, and moderator will not be present in-person, they will be joining online via Zoom. We will be screening the online event in rooms 303 and 304 at Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. ♦About the Book There’s something very timely about [The Membranes'] play with gender fluidity and the social construction of identity. There’s also something timeless about Chi’s future, because of how it bends and defies time itself. The novel is about how identity is a story we tell ourselves through time — or back through time. And that story, for Chi, is queer . . . English readers who finish it now, 25 years after it was first published, may regret finding it so late, and missing out on all the stories and selves we could have been, even as it seems like it’s been here the whole time. ~Los Angeles Times "First published in Taiwan in 1995, The Membranes is a classic of queer speculative fiction in Chinese. Ta-Wei Chi weaves dystopian tropes—heirloom animals, radiation-proof combat drones, sinister surveillance technologies—into a sensitive portrait of one young woman’s quest for self-understanding." (Publisher summary, published by the Columbia University Press in New York.) ♦About the Author Ta-Wei Chi is a queer science fiction writer in Taipei. His science fiction novel, The Membranes, originally published in Chinese, is available in Japanese, French and English. His science fiction story collection, The Pearls, is available in France. With a PhD in Comparative Literature at UCLA, he is associate professor of Taiwanese literature at National Chengchi University in Taipei, where he teaches LGBT studies and disability studies. His monograph in Chinese discusses LGBT and literature in Taiwanese history from the 1960s to the new millennium. ♦About the Translator Ari Larissa Heinrich is a Professor of Chinese literature and media at the Australian National University. He is the author of Chinese Surplus: Biopolitical Aesthetics and the Medically Commodified Body (2018) and other books, and the translator of Qiu Miaojin’s novel Last Words from Montmartre (2014). He translated Ta-Wei Chi's novel The Membranes into English. ♦About the Moderator Ariel Chu is a Taiwanese American writer from Eastvale, California. In 2020, Ariel received her MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University, where she served as the co-Editor in Chief of Salt Hill Journal (Spring 2019 to Spring 2020) and received a 2019 P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans. This year, Ariel is a visiting Luce Scholar at National Chengchi University in Taipei, where she is researching contemporary queer Taiwanese literature. From Fall 2021, Ariel will be a PhD candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California, where she intends to finish her novel with the support of a Steinbeck Fellowship. Read more. |
2021 Taiwan Bunun Indigenous Music & Film Festival Comes to Michigan in October In order to share and celebrate the unique music and culture of Taiwanese indigenous people, the 2021 Taiwan Bunun Indigenous Music and Film Festival will take place from October 13 through October 27, boasting a variety of in person and virtual programs in Michigan and across the U.S. All of the events are free and open to the public.
The Bunun tribe is the fourth largest of Taiwan's indigenous groups. Like other indigenous groups around the world, the Bunun's music plays an essential role in their daily lives. Therefore, the festival will kick off with a 60-minute online musical titled Listen to Bunun (聆聽布農). The show will be performed by the National Chinese Orchestra Taiwan and Bunun tribal members. Through a Bunun elder’s recollection, Listen to Bunun tells the history of the Bunun people, including generations of joys and sorrows, ethnic disputes, and emotional entanglements among the Bununs and their neighboring tribes, as well as the arrival of Han Chinese people since the 17th century and the Japanese colonization of Taiwan for 50 years.
Of all the Bunun vocal performances, the most renowned repertoire is the Pasibutbut — an eight-part polyphony sung as a sacred prayer for the millet harvest. While singing, all singers attentively listen to each other to match even the most subtle of changes. In 1952, Japanese musicologist Takatomo Kurosawa (黑澤隆朝) presented his research paper on the Bunun's vocal music tradition to UNESCO, drawing international attention to Taiwan's indigenous cultures. During the festival, several panels and lectures will be available online for those who would like to learn more about the Bunun’s music and culture.
Three films, including two documentaries (Sing it (唱歌吧!) and Sing it+ (不只唱歌吧!)) and one feature (Listen Before You Sing(聽見歌 再唱)), all directed by Chih-Lin Yang (楊智麟), will also be played in different venues in Michigan. Sing it and Sing it+ document the inspiring journey of a group of Bunun kids who found their passion through singing. Listen Before You Sing is an adaption of the two documentaries, centering on a school which caters almost exclusively to a dwindling indigenous Bunun community and faces threat of closure. Eventually, it enters a singing contest to avoid being shut down.
As one of the “Spotlight Taiwan” projects supported by Taiwan's Ministry of Culture, the festival is organized by the Michigan Taiwanese American Organization (MiTAI), in collaboration with the Ann Arbor District Library (AADL), the Detroit Institute of Arts Museum (DIA), Oakland University Taiwan Week (OU), and the University of Michigan-Flint (UM-Flint), as well as the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments and the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies (LRCCS) at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
For more information, please visit MiTAI’s official website or Facebook page: mitaiaa.weebly.com; facebook.com/Mitai.org.
Dates and Venues (subject to change)
Musical: Listen to Bunun
October 13-27 via DIA YouTube Channel or aadl.org
*Online only
Documentary Films: Sing It and Sing It+
October 14, 12:00 pm at Oakland Center, OU
*In-person only
*With a Q&A session
International Panel Discussion: Bunun’s Music and Culture
October 14, 7:00 pm via DIA StreamYard Live
*Online only
*With a Q&A session
This is an across the ocean panel discussion that features panelists in Michigan (Larry Baranski, DIA Director of Public Programming, and Daniel Birchok, Professor in Anthropology at the University of Michigan-Flint) and panelists in Taiwan (Film Director Chih-Lin Yang; Mr. Guo-Ching Wang, Bunun Chief and General Manager; Ms. Shiu-Lan Chuan, Bunun Dou-Ling, and Art&Music Lead).
Feature Film: Listen Before You Sing (North American Premiere)
October 17, 2:00 pm at Downtown Library, AADL
*In-person only
October 19, 12:00 pm at Oakland Center, OU
*In-person only
October 21, 6:00 pm at Kiva Auditorium, UM-Flint
*In-person only
*With a post-screening international panel discussion. The panelists are director Chih-Lin Yang and Sarah Pattison, Associate Director of Global Engagement, UM-Flint in Michigan.
Lecture: Chance and Intent: Bunun’s Pasibutbut
October 19-27 via DIA YouTube Channel
The lecture is delivered by Professor Rung-Shun Wu, Ph.D., former Dean of the School of Music, Taipei National University of the Arts, introducing the Taiwanese indigenous Bunun tribe’s story of culture, music, and Pasibutbut.
Lecture: Music and Instruments of the Bunun People of Taiwan
October 20, 6:00p.m. Live by Zoom at AADL
The lecture is delivered by Joseph Gascho, Ph.D., Professor of Music and Director of the Stearns Collections at the University of Michigan. Two Bunun musical instruments will be presented to the Stearns Collection. Read more. |
The 2021 Second Open Call for the Grant for the Publication of Taiwanese Works in Translation (GPT) The Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, is pleased to announce the 2021 second open call for the Grant for the Publication of Taiwanese Works in Translation (GPT). GPT is set to encourage the publication of Taiwanese works in translation overseas, to raise the international visibility of Taiwanese cultural content, and to help Taiwan's publishing industry expand into non-Chinese international markets. Applications will be accepted during October 1 to October 31. The maximum grant for each project is about US$20,000. Please apply online. The Taiwanese works must meet the following requirements: A. Use traditional characters; B. Be written by a natural person holding a R.O.C. identity card; C. Be assigned an ISBN in Taiwan. i.e., the author is a native of Taiwan, and the first 6 digits of the book's ISBN are 978-957-XXX-XXX-X or 978-986-XXX-XXX-X. Priority consideration is given to books that have received the Golden Tripod Award, the Golden Comic Award, or the Taiwan Literature Award. The United States publishing houses (legal entities) legally registered or incorporated in accordance with the laws and regulations of the United States are welcomed to apply for this project. For more information, please check the GPT Application Guidelines or email to: books@moc.gov.tw. Read more. |
Taiwan Film Festival of Boston Goes Hybrid in October The Taiwan Film Festival of Boston (TFFB) will kick off on October 2, presenting nine films online and in theaters under this year’s special theme, “Bittersweet.” TFFC hopes that, given everyone’s own unique experiences in dealing with both the good times and bad times in life, the audience can relate to the protagonists in this year’s selection and fall in love with the unique taste of Taiwanese movies. The festival will celebrate its 3rd edition with a 12-hour movie marathon on the very first day, screening 4 features and 2 shorts at AMC Boston Common 19. The opening film is André & His Olive Tree (初心), documenting the final few weeks before Taiwanese chef André Chiang closed his two Michelin star “Restaurant André” in Singapore, as well as his own emotional journey of self-reflection. Other works include My Missing Valentine (消失的情人節), a romantic comedy tenderly solving the mystery of why the protagonist wakes up after Valentine's Day with no memory of the last 24 hours; Dear Tenant (親愛的房客), a family drama exploring the limits of unconditional love and the judgment and misunderstanding society still exhibits towards homosexuality; The Great Buddha+ (大佛普拉斯), a surreal satire sharply taking on issues of social class and injustice; as well as My Way (魚路) and Ms. Lin - The Retouching Lady (修片林小姐), two award-winning documentary shorts. From October 3-5, the festival will play three different films online, including Heavy Craving (大餓), a heartwarming comedy drama about a woman compelled to lose weight in order to meet built-in societal expectations; Turning 18 (未來無恙), a coming-of-age documentary centered around two girls’ struggles from growing up in disadvantaged families; and See You White House (再會啦白宮), a documentary digging up the past of a mysterious building located in Taiwan’s Yunlin County, where the U.S. Navy conducted medical research more than 50 years ago. TFFB will also arrange four Q&As with director Ho Chao-ti (賀照緹) of Turning 18, director Hsieh Pei-ju (謝沛如) of Heavy Craving, director Cheng Yu-Chieh (鄭有傑) of Dear Tenant, and director Josiah Ng (黃程瀚) of André & His Olive Tree, sharing their behind-the-scenes experiences from October 5-8. For more information, please visit TFFB’s official website: https://taiwanfilmfest.org. Read more. |
Open Call for “SPOTLIGHT TAIWAN” Project’s Applications until Oct. 29, 2021 Taiwan's Ministry of Culture is pleased to announce the open call for proposals for its annual “Spotlight Taiwan” project, which is to promote international cultural exchanges and cultivate a greater interest and appreciation of Taiwan’s culture in the international community. Arts, cultural, and educational institutions – including museums, performing arts centers, and universities – are welcome to apply. The Ministry may provide funding up to a maximum of US$40,000 per year for an approved project. Applications will close on Oct. 29, 2021. The themes and forms of activities to be supported are as follows: 1. Courses, lectures, symposia, and workshops with research on Taiwan as their focus. 2. Art and culture activities with Taiwan’s culture as their theme. 3. Exchanges and collaborative efforts related to Taiwan’s cultural and creative industries or cultural policy development. Institutions and organizations based in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, the U.S, as well as Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Canada can submit their proposals electronically to the Taipei Cultural Center in New York, Ministry of Culture, Taiwan. For more information, please visit https://www.moc.gov.tw/global_outreach/News_Card.aspx?n=520&sms=10753. Contact Person in Taipei Cultural Center in New York: Ms. Chin Kanglan Email: klchin@moc.gov.tw; Tel: (212)697-6188#6 Read more. |
駐紐約台北經濟文化辦事處台北文化中心 1 East 42nd Street, Floor 7th, New York, NY 10017, USA
Ph: +1-212-697-6188 | Fax: +1-212-697-6303
Email: tpecc@tpecc.org |
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