Wu-Yue Taiwanese Opera Troupe: Embedded Advertising on Radio drama “Slapping the Princess”
4 episodes in total. (Duration: 15-25minutes per episode)
In the early days it was a unique and interesting Taiwan market culture that the medicine peddlers sold their drugs and products by lively drama play or singing verse or raps to attract the consumers. Taiwanese opera was also widely applied by them to appeal to more passersby.
The play Slapping the Princess is a traditional Chinese drama play which tells a story about a proud princess at Tang Dynasty. The princess Sheng ping (Sing Ping in Taiwanese) was married to Guo Ai (Kueh Ai in Taiwanese), the son of the famous general Guo Ziyi (Kueh Tsu-gi in Taiwanese). The princess was too proud to respect the Guo family because of her noble status. The princess we even absent from the family gathering which was held to celebrate her father in law Guo Ziyi’s birthday. Thus the young couple had a severe dispute.
We would like to insert the local medicine-peddling into this traditional Taiwanese opera. We expect to combine such two different-style cultures to trigger various and interesting elements to let the audience experience the early-time local radio drama and the beauty of Taiwanese opera on air.
Producer: Chiou Chaiu-Ling (the President of Wu-Yue Taiwanese Opera Troupe), Tung Shu-Ting
Staff: Wang Shiau-Wei, Wang Ching-Hsien, Tsai Chia-Fang, Hsieh Wu-Hsiung, Lo Ya-Ting, Chou Hsiang-Ling
Wu-Yue Taiwanese Opera Troupe
“Echoing the sounds of logging in the mountains, we are singing and dancing. When getting tired, let’s drink till the cups are empty!” These phrases from The Book of Odes(Shijing) inspired us the characteristic of traditional Taiwanese opera and the sharing-spirit in our culture to name our troupe Wu-Yue(舞樂). “Wu” means dancing and acrobatics, and “Yue” means music. Both are essential elements in traditional Taiwanese opera.
Wu-Yue Taiwanese Opera Troupe’s performance aims to express these elements from which each utterance makes music; and each movement resembles dancing and acrobatics. We expect our performance will bring the beauty of traditional Taiwanese to our audience and promote the appreciation of this special art.