| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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Chapter One
Introduction
Theater reflects life. Taiwan does not only have the Cloud Gate Dance Theater, the Performance Workshop, and the Ping Fong Acting Troupe, but Taiwan also has multicultural theatricalization, diverse creative styles, and alternative theatrical representation. Alternative Theater in Taiwan takes the fresh and useful approaches of Feminism and Interculturalism to the historical study of theaters in Taiwan. It provides a global perspective that allows the performances of many theatrical kinds in Taiwan to be considered, not in the margins of Western theater but in and of themselves. This not only illuminates the facets of Taiwan theater, but our understanding of human expressiveness at large. To accomplish this, I relate the history of theater in Taiwan and elaborate on seventeen performances put on mainly in Taiwan. By comparing the theatrical performances with other representative performances put on in America and France, I show that these alternative theaters (not just the mainstream big commercial theaters, classics, canons, and popular musicals, but also the little theaters, avant-garde theaters, women’s theaters, gay and lesbian theaters, the ethnic minority’s theaters, the fringe theaters, the community theaters, the ritual and religious performances, and the cooperative productions between Taiwan and China, Taiwan and the West, etc.), all exemplify the multicultural facets of Taiwan theater and the interaction, and globalization of performances and cultures as the center stage reflecting human emotions, thought, existence, and aesthetics.