We arrived in Taiwan in mid-August of 2024 with an 11 months Fulbright Scholarship to continue researching and testing the connections between traditional Taiwanese hand puppetry and hand-held digital devices. Thanks to an invitation from Director  Yi–Wei TSAI 蔡易衛 our first stop this time around, we visited the closing event for the 20th Anniversary Exhibition of the Puppetry Art Center of Taipei, which like “a young adult stepping into their twenties” is a “display of youthfulness reaching maturity.”

Embracing adolescent themes of “vibrant energy, the courage to explore the unknown and a passion for embracing the world” Yi-Wei led an entertaining tour through the exhibition that culminated in two short demonstrations, one using the museum’s traditional Budaixi 布袋戲 stage, the other one using a Golden Ray / JinGuang (金光布袋戲 ) stage, where the puppet super-power character made its spectacular entry with smoke and several light effects.

The permanent collection of the museum always showcases interesting examples of puppet characters and explains their context within the history of Taiwanese puppetry.