Who Is Hung Tung

Hung Tung, a self-taught folk painter, was an illiterate local villager from Nankunshen, Tainan. His painting was a world of bizarre yet colorful mystery, one that was inspired by folklores and the indigenous culture but stood separate from the world familiar to us. Hung Tung used to enjoy incredible fame but ended his life in solitude. His quiet yet odd characters also made him a legend. We invoke Hung Tung’s fantastic universe and, with a unique narrative of collage fashion, we present a whole new experience of senses in theater. The performance consists of 15 sections of metaphoric varieties to interpret Hung Tung’s characters, the images in his painting, and how the younger generations may perceive him. The stage is painted entirely in white and resembles the Chinese character “sun”, surrounding all the audience, just like Hung Tung’s paintings absorb those who look at them. The play prepares its materials out of ordinary goods and transforms them into unusual symbols; the plastic red plates for worship rituals, white plastic water vats, or simply the bamboo sticks, all are meant to construct a psychological vision through performance. The live music also presents a expanding aural space during the play. All the techniques in the fashion of magical reality allow the audience to approach Hung Tung’s passion, and they connect the multiple spaces and times between the paintings and the theater.

Program of 2011 Taipei Arts Festival
Premiere: August 16, 2011/ Songshan Culture and Creative Park, Warehouse 1, Taipei
Director: Chia-yin CHENG
Conceived by Ling-chih CHOW Liang-ting KUO, Yen-ting TSENG, Yu-jane LIU