A Sea of Puppets- Traditional Taiwanese Glove Puppet Show

The UCLA Center for Chinese Studies presents the Taiyuan Puppet Theatre Company performing "A Sea of Puppets".

6:30- Reception with light refreshments
7:30- Performance Begins

Taiyuan Puppet Theatre Company introduces Taiwanese glove puppet theatre, which has a variety of rich and tradition where music, carving, embroidery and a delicate performance technique all come together.
The Taiyuan Puppet Theatre was founded to continue this tradition, and at the same time creating new and innovative music plays. The company is based at the Lin Liu-Hsin Puppet Theatre Museum in Dadaocheng, the old centre of Taipei.

The company performs traditional style plays on a one hundred-year old stage with live music, as well as modern style plays, in which puppeteers, actors and musicians interact. The plays are accessible for audiences of all ages and cultural backgrounds.

The company’s shows have been performed in over 40 countries around the world, at venues such as the Purcell Room of the Royal Festival Hall and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the rainforests of Central America, the Traditional Opera Theatre in Hanoi, Union Square in San Francisco, the Macau Arts Festival, the Asian Performing Arts Festival in Seoul, Casa Mila in Barcelona, the countryside of Cambodia and, of course, the squares and theatres of old Taipei.

A Sea of Puppets is a traditional Taiwanese glove puppet show performed on a beautifully carved wooden stage. With amazing skills the puppeteers bring the exquisite puppets with embroidered costumes to life. They perform not only delicate gestures, but also exciting fighting scenes and acrobatics. The story is a romantic tale where a young man saves a girl from the hands of a villain (clown character). In the show we will see all the characters of traditional Taiwanese puppet theatre: the young lady, the scholar, the clowns and the villains.
The show was performed in over 30 countries. In this fascinating performance, we will see a glimpse of one of the most beautiful theatre performances in the world and the sheer virtuosity of the Taiwanese puppet performance accompanied by live music by three musicians and singers. The show is indeed suitable for an audience of all ages.

There will be complimentary parking at Parking Structure 2.

RSVP here.