Puppets, politics and identity in Taiwan

The UCLA Center for Chinese Studies presents Robin Ruizendaal, speaking about the development of puppet theatre in Taiwan from the stage performance to the television screen and its role as a symbol of a distinct Taiwanese identity.

In 2006, glove puppet theatre was chosen as the symbol that could best represent Taiwan in a national opinion poll by the Government Information Office. Puppet theatre gained over 130.000 votes, beating both the highest mountain (Jade Mountain) and the highest building (Taipei 101), who respectively became second and third. Puppet theatre is viewed as an expression of Taiwanese grass-roots culture and the puppets symbolize far more than the characters they represent. Politicians from different parties are eager to be photographed with a puppet or puppeteer during election season. Television puppet shows have unleashed a craze among young people, which is quite unique in Asia. This paper will chart the development of puppet theatre in Taiwan from the stage performance to the television screen and its role as a symbol of a distinct Taiwanese identity.

Dr. Robin Ruizendaal earned a Ph.D. In Chinese studies from Leiden University, The Netherlands, and has been doing research on puppet theatre for over twenty years, including extensive fieldwork in China and Southeast Asia. He is the Director of the Taiyuan Asian Puppet Theatre Museum in Taipei (formerly the Lin Liu-Hsin Puppet Theatre Museum) and Artistic Director of the Taiyuan Puppet Theatre Company. He has written and directed quite a number of plays for both actors and puppets, that have been performed in over 30 countries.

He has planned and curated several exhibitions on puppet theatre and Taiwanese history. Including the Ilha Formosa exhibition at the National Palace Museum in 2003 and more recently A World of Puppets exhibition at the East West Center in Hawaii. He is also curator of most exhibitions in the Taiyuan Asian Puppet Theatre Museum in Taipei.

Dr. Ruizendaal has published widely on the subject of puppet theatre. His extensive research on marionette theatre in southern China, Marionette Theatre in Quanzhou, was published with Brill Publishers in the Netherlands in 2006. The book Asian Theatre Puppets was published by Thames & Hudson in 2009. He is currently working on a research project of southern Chinese glove puppet theatre, potehi, companies in Southeast Asia, together with scholars from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar and Japan. The book of this research: Potehi, Glove Puppet Theatre in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, will be published in 2015.