Recently, groups of performing artists from Taiwan have made frequent appearances on stages in the West. For instance, U Theater went to Venice to play in the Carnival, and Cloud Gate Dance Theater attracted much attention when it performed its Nine Songs at New York's Next Wave arts festival. Another internationally known arts festival, France's Avignon Festival, has recently decided to produce a Taiwan Festival in 1998. What kind of self-image should "cultural exports" present? And what is the purpose of performing overseas?

"We invited Mr. Bernard Faivre d'Arcier to come to Taiwan for the Council for Cultural Affairs' anniversary celebrations, and we took the opportunity to show him Taiwan's performing environment. We haven't put any pressure on him or expected him to praise anything," says Cheng Shu-min, the Council's chairwoman. But, she says, Faivre d'Arcier's reaction has been very positive, and he has decided to produce a Taiwan arts festival. This makes Cheng feel that in addition to fostering Taiwan's international performing groups, inviting foreign artistic directors to see Taiwan's performing arts is another way in which the Council can promote Taiwan's performers.

Exoticism as window-dressing?

Taiwan's artistic and cultural circles have reacted largely positively to the arrangements the CCA made for Mr. and Mrs. Faivre d'Arcier's visit. Cloud Gate Dance Theater director Lin Huai-min does not feel that for the Council to specially arrange a program for a foreign artistic director is "fawning on foreigners." "If the CCA didn't do it, would any commercial agents go overseas to promote Taiwan's performing groups?" He says that the only difficulty was that because the guests' time was limited, putting together a program which would give them a clear idea of the development of the performing arts in Taiwan was quite a challenge.

While Mr. and Mrs. Faivre d'Arcier were in the ROC, there happened to be a number of performances in quick succession, including an outdoor production of the play Oresteia, the gezaixi Taiwanese opera Two-Spear Lu Wen-lung, the Peking Opera Fifteen Strings of Coppers, and others. The CCA also arranged for the guests to see a number of dance performances, and to visit the U Theater, the Cloud Gate Dance Theater, the National Fu Hsing Dramatic Arts Academy (the ROC's leading Peking Opera school), and the Ilan County Cultural Center.

Ping Heng, director of the "Dance Space" dance group, feels there is a degree of "oriental exoticism" in all the programs the CCA organized. She wonders if this is because such programs are particularly likely to find favor, or because the main thrust of the development of Taiwan's performing arts is centered on traditional content.

As far as the latter question is concerned, we can ask ourselves: can we really develop our own distinctive character through the medium of Western technique? How should we approach the emotionally problematic opposition between the modern and the traditional? Or to put it another way, is there really a dichotomy between tradition and modernity? What is the relationship between "modernity" and "Westernization"? And is gaining the approval of people of other countries our ultimate goal?

As far as the accusation of "exoticism" goes, perhaps Westerners do have some stereotyped perceptions of the East. Be that as it may, Faivre d'Arcier does indeed say that Taiwan's performing arts are full of vitality, but he is likely to choose programs which retain a distinctive artistic style and are rich in the features of traditional culture.

Prophets in their own land

If one looks at several recent examples of Sino- French cultural exchange, the French seem to be quite fascinated by Chinese traditional opera. Last year when the CCA organized a tour of five continental European countries for Ming Hua-yuan's gezaixi, Kao Hui-lan's kunqu and Li Pao-chun's Peking Opera, they were all enthusiastically received. And a few years ago Tsai Hsiao-yueh's nanguan Taiwanese opera enchanted its Parisian audience--the troupe played from the evening until dawn before the audience would let them go, and later even recorded a CD. Their success caused mixed emotions on both the Chinese and French sides: art forms which are in decline in their own country of origin often find admirers overseas.

When Li Pao-chun performed in France, he sensed that audiences there not only liked to watch the lively action of the Monkey opera Havoc in Heaven, but could also appreciate the depth of Lin Chong's grief and anger at the injustice he suffers, in Forest of the Wild Boars. Li says that Faivre d'Ar-cier raised with him the possibility of Chinese and French artists playing the Peking Opera Journey to the West together. If such a collaboration were to follow some previous examples at the Avignon Festival, like last year's Japanese Noh plays or Peter Brook's Mahabharata, the piece might be performed out of doors over eight or nine hours.

Li Pao-chun feels this idea is a very challenging one. Firstly, Journey to the West has many episodes which make complete performances in themselves, such as "The Eighteen Arhats do Battle with Sun Wukong," and stringing several together should not be too difficult. Also, this year when Li went to perform in France, he gave classes in which he taught French performers Peking Opera postures and singing techniques. He found that they were very interested, and also grasped things quite well. But this is just a preliminary idea which will need long discussion and deliberation before plans can be finalized.

Overcoming cultural barriers

"Since the fashion for Japanese art in the 19th century, the French have had an almost inborn fascination with Japan. But they also like Chinese culture. If you can show them things in Peking Opera that they haven't seen before, then you will have achieved the purpose of cultural exchange," says Yang Li-li, who has studied drama in Paris and who now teaches in the foreign languages department at National Tsing Hua University.

The purpose of cultural exchange is mutual understanding, but can people overcome the barriers of their different linguistic and cultural backgrounds to appreciate each other's cultures?

Yang Li-li believes this depends on the quality of the program performed and what it attempts to achieve. On some levels, the form of a performance can transcend language barriers and communicate shared human experiences. For instance, although Yang does not understand German, she was once deeply moved by a German play. She also finds the quiet solemnity of Japanese Noh theater and the lively spectacle of Kabuki extremely attractive.

On the other hand, Ping Heng feels that when works from Taiwan play overseas, they may sometimes not be accepted or understood--because of cultural barriers, or even because they "don't match foreigner's impressions of the East." "But," she says, "if only performers have self-confidence and the courage to present their own views, then over the course of a few encounters people can naturally broaden each other's perspectives."

Roots in one's own country

Recently many Taiwanese performance groups have been invited to play overseas. Apart from showing recognition of their abilities, some people feel that what lies behind this is a sense of novelty--because they previously so rarely appeared on Western stages--along with Taiwan's economic prowess.

Be that as it may, in the larger environment of frequent cultural exchanges worldwide, promotion of Taiwan's performing arts as a whole will still require government departments and performance groups to establish a good model for exporting culture. We could also draw on other countries' experience by ourselves staging international arts festivals with a distinctive character.

Amidst this fever for performing overseas, perhaps we should turn around to look at ourselves. In Yang Li-li's opinion, going to perform at Avignon is all well and good, but what is even more important is to "see how the performance group is doing in Taiwan, and whether they have roots in their own country." Perhaps after accumulating richer experience in the area of cultural exchange, our performing artists will become more mature and self-confident, and be able to arouse greater interest among local audiences. Surely this is where the real value of "exporting culture" lies.