Award-winning annual Fringe showcase reinvented – once again – as an online programme from August 6 until 29, 2021 

 

Launched in 2014, Taiwan Season had been an ever-increasing ‘hot tip’ at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe by showcasing a wealth of dance, theatre and live performance. And then came the pandemic. In lieu of live performances, the canny organisers bravely forged ahead with a virtual programme of cultural close encounters that took shape as a month-long series of in-depth, thematically varied webinars and stimulating artist interviews.  

 

For its efforts Taiwan Season Online Symposium: ‘Connecting with Taiwan’ was rewarded with an Infallibles Award, initiated by Stefania Bochicchio (CEO of Infallible Productions and ITI/UNESCO co-director) in 2016 to recognise excellence and creativity on the Fringe. According to Bochicchio, the jury decided unanimously to establish a new category: that of a Fringe ‘National Presence’ which had shown ‘the most artistically intelligent approach to lockdown restrictions by managing, in a most difficult year for the Edinburgh Fringe, to embrace and exploit - in the very best sense - the online format.’ 

 

Now Taiwan Season is back, responding for a second consecutive year to the challenges of COVID-19 by proudly presenting Taiwan Season Online Performances & Symposium 2021. Working in partnership with the key Fringe venue Summerhall, ZOO TV and the Fringe itself via the on-demand platform Fringe Player, this caringly-curated online programme consists of four distinctly different, filmed dance-theatre productions and four thematically diverse and free webinars addressing artistic creation and relations in a contemporary global context.