Chao-Liang Shen was born in Taiwan in 1968. Armed with a degree in Applied Arts, he worked as a photojournalist at the Liberty Times before beginning his own creative projects in 1993. His distinctive images in both black and white and colour have since earned him both national and international recognition.
A much-appreciated form of entertainment, Taiwanese o-pei-la can be traced back to the late Meiji era, when the island was under Japanese control. As traditional opera was banned, the players had no choice but to invent a new genre, a mix of Asian and Western theatre with operetta, which they wittily christened “o-pei-la”. One of its distinctive characteristics is that it is performed in the open air for audiences won over in advance by such extravagances as sets showing burning mountains and heroes who float in the air. One of today’s best examples of this innocuously iconoclastic art form is provided by the Golden Bough Theatre, founded in the 1990s.
In addition the period since the 1970s has seen the emergence of a cabaret culture which has also upset prevailing codes: an exuberant song-and-dance grab bag, borrowing as readily from American burlesque and its strippers as from the local juggling and dancing traditions. Performing all over the island for weddings, funerals and religious ceremonies, the troupes travel in trucks which are themselves part of the spectacle and sometimes steal the show from the amateur casts of teachers, students, bank clerks, etc. “Under their suits of lights,” says Chao Liang Shen, who has put more than two years into this project “these are just ordinary people hoping for a better life.” Here he reveals the ongoing evolution of a little-known feature of Taiwan society, a popular stage phenomenon for which he feels great affection.
Sylvie Rebbot, Nian Zeng, curators
Text from the catalogue-book “Photoquai”, co-edited by Musée du Quai Branly- Actes-Sud
