The daughter of the prime minister, Liu, Yue-E, caches her fancy of Lu, Meng-Zheng during the ceremony when throwing the embroidered ball for choosing the son-in-law(Pao Xiu Qiu, 拋繡球). It is useless when the prime minister persuades Yue-E not to be with a poor scholar. She insists on marrying him. The angry prime minister drives Yue-E away so she has to live with Lu Meng-Zheng in a dilapidated cave dwelling. Once Lu, Men-Zheng is rushing to a free meal at the White Horse Temple (Bai Mai Temple, 白馬寺), the prime minister tells the abbot not to help Lu, Men-Zheng. The humiliation becomes the driving force and motivates him to leave home and join the imperial examinations in Bian-Liang. As a result, he is the top candidate and awarded as the Champion (Zhuang Yuan, 狀元). After returning to his hometown, he finally gets together with his wife, meanwhile, the prime minister accepts their marriage and the family is able to reunite.
《The tale of Lu, Meng-Zheng》is the cooperation of Jin Kwei Lo Puppetry Company and the Department of Traditional Music, uphold the professional concept, the play is based on the tradition combining the elements of theater, in order to show the authentic philosophy of the story and archive cultural heritage and continuity, bringing a new style into the traditional puppet show(theater).
The founder, Chiang, Szu-mei, is the first generation of Puppetry’s Female master engaging in the Puppetry art for more than 60 years. By perfecting her skills like singing, chanting, and dexterous control of the puppets, she has become one of the greatest Puppetry masters in Taiwan. Chiang’s son, Ko, Chia-tsai, continued his mother’s career, where he learned everything little by little and slowly absorbed his mother’s skills. Eventually, he achieved success in both performing and orchestrating the puppetry show. He has been in contact with traditional Chinese theater for more than 50 years as of yet. The third generation, Ko, Shih-Hung and Ko, Shih-Hua, took up the art of Puppetry hoping to perpetuate the delicate art of Taiwanese Puppetry into cultural memory. At the same time, they encouraged imaginative exploration and popularized artistic and cultural innovation by fusing Western Puppetry and Taiwanese Puppetry.
In recent years, the cross-field and mixed media performance of the third generation enjoys the support of people from all walks of life. Walking along the road of the traditional arts. The three generations have dedicated themselves to pass down the art of traditional Taiwanese hand puppetry. Their achievement has become legendary in the traditional puppet art community in Taiwan.
TNUA Graduate Institute of Traditional Music
The TNUA Department of Traditional Music was established in 1995 for the purpose of furthering, researching, and developing traditional music through the nurturing of professional talent.
The professional training of the department unites the transmission of traditional music and modernized, expert ideals of higher education in music. Aside from a coherent focus on expertise in technical performance, performance theory, and the art of performance, we also emphasize holistic learning in the field, with required courses relating to traditional music. To broaden their horizons, students take courses in Western music history and theory as well as Asian music, and can take Gamelan or Steel Band orchestra as electives, becoming artists with an ethnographic worldliness. Graduate study is divided into theory and performance streams. With the deepening of both traditional performance technique and academic ability as our goal, the program emphasizes a spirit of modernity and internationalism, in order to nurture professional talent in traditional music performance, research, and teaching. Developing through the aid of rich educational resources, students are not only equipped with diverse performance techniques and academic cultivation in the field of traditional music, but expand their horizons, becoming artists with both ethnic color and an international field of vision.
