The 2010 Kuandu Arts Festival has kicked off with a bang, inviting all to “play with us, play with arts” in activities based on this year’s theme, “PLUS,” which stresses cross-boundary mixes of different elements to create unlimited possibilities for arts and integrate life with art.
The October 9 opening ceremony featured local cultures in a parade from the Kuandu Temple to TNUA, the organizer of the annual arts festival, which runs until October 31. A prayer in the form of the indigenous Puyuma people’s rite of passage was performed at the Arts Forum, the most famous site of the TNUA campus, with everyone singing and dancing to welcome the upcoming month of joy from the Kuandu Arts Festival.
The evening was spent with the “Taiwan traditional hip hop” band Kou Chou Ching delighting the audiences with songs in the Hoklo and Hakka dialects, as well as traditional Taiwanese music.
The Kuandu Arts Festival comes closely on the heels of “Transfuture,” an exhibition of art and technology jointly organized by TNUA and the Quanta Arts Foundation.
At the opening ceremony for “Transfuture” – which ran from September 17 to October 2 – TNUA President Prof. Ju, Tzong-Ching noted that Quanta Computer’s chairman, Mr. Barry Lam, is an ardent supporter of art activities. Prof. Ju said he believes the foundation will set a paradigm for collaboration between Taiwanese enterprises and arts institutions.
Prof. Ju pointed out that the exhibition was not only a significant example of enterprises playing a leading role in the arts industry, it was also a breakthrough in the technology of new media art, allowing two completely different fields to learn from and stimulate each other.
Prof. Ju expects both sides to have more opportunities for even closer collaboration in the future in exhibitions, performances, research or teaching.
The opening ceremony took place on September 17 at the Linkou, Taipei County headquarters of Quanta Computer, which is one of the biggest notebook PC makers in the world. The Quanta Arts Foundation was established in early 2010.