Hey, who are you and what do you do?

I’m Chung Shefong and actually I work on a lot of different things. I’m teaching at the National Cheng-chi University and this year my current position is also the Director of the University’s Art and Culture center. I’ve also been working as a music producer and a festival organizer for many years. I founded the music label Trees Music and Art in 1993 and a festival called Migration Music Festival in 2001.

How has the performing arts field developed since you started working in the field?

The music festival and label I’m working with are definitely not mainstream so the development of the industry is not something we would focus on. Nevertheless, I would say that what has changed, is the audience. More people are interested in our music and coming to see the gigs. We are also getting more support and more people trust our brand.

What is the festival about?

I founded the festival called Migration Music Festival eleven years ago. It’s not a big scale festival, it’s something between a small and a medium sized one. Our festival programs vary from film and panels to workshops and storytelling. The year 2013 we concentrated in the storytelling.

Why is the festival called Migration Music festival?

I started from the concept of migration, I’m very interested in all the stories and the music related to it. I’m also interested in the story of diaspora. As the festival is not very big, I really need to focus on the themes and topics of the program and select the artists carefully. During the last few years, we’ve had themes such as accordion new definition, world indigents, conscious, this year storytelling tradition and also we are concentrating on the Asian artists doing something unique.

How does storytelling vary in different parts of Asia?

That’s actually a part of our theme this year. We try to link the singing, bard tradition from each country to contemporary storytelling. I think the contemporary storytelling, the singer songwriter tradition is more connected to the social issues. Taiwan is a part of Asia but we don’t know what is happening in our neighbor countries. In the 60’s and 70’s there were the student movements in Asia and many folk movements rose from the social and political movement. We didn’t know about that at the time so we are trying to introduce these stories through music now.

How did the audience react to the theme?

I try to make the Migration Music Festival a platform or a tool to fix the gaps in people’s knowledge as there is always a gap in understanding others. We don’t always have the will to do that. The most important role for this kind of a festival is to make people know about other’s stories and give them more understanding.

There are a lot of festivals that concentrate on a specific type of music, be it jazz or classical music. I try not to do that, I always start with a theme. It’s not very common nowadays.

What is the future of independent festivals in Taiwan?

I think it will get more and more difficult as the costs of organizing an event are rising. That’s why it’s important to network with other festivals and establish partnerships. Otherwise it will get more and more difficult as also most of the countries are cutting their culture budgets. I try not to think about the future too much, I just try to find more and more new partners so that we can keep on doing the things we want to do.

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Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Betsy Lan. I come from Taipei and I represent Taipei Fringe Festival. Taipei Fringe Festival started in 2008 and we are still a very young festival. We are a platform developed specifically for young and new artists. Basically Taipei Fringe is run by the government, the Taipei City Government provides free venues. We pay the rental fee for the artist and the artist can choose the venue they like and the time they like to perform. The spaces we curate are very diverse. Essentially we encourage artists to do site specific works. We also try to use this platform to promote new artists because most of them have just graduated and starting their careers. When they come to the festival, their work will be seen by the professionals and their peers. The young artists can grow in the festival and if they are lucky, they can be picked up by other producers throughout the country.

Where do your artists come from?

As we are still very young as a festival, the artists are mainly from Taiwan. But we also have a handful of international groups and artists from all around the world. They are mainly from other parts of Asia, from Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore, but we also have a few artists from Europe and North America.

What is the history of the festival?

The Taipei City Government runs two arts festivals during the summer. One is Taipei Children’s Art Festival and the other one is Taipei Arts Festival. They are targeted to different audiences: Taipei Children’s Art Festival is for families and Taipei Arts Festival is for more mature theater audience and professionals. The government felt that there was a need to create a platform for the young artists and that’s why Taipei Fringe Festival was created.

How do you see the government’s role in the performing arts field in Taiwan?

Right now the government plays a very important role in providing funding and resources for the arts community. There are not enough private funders in Taiwan. Besides providing money, the arts festivals like these which are run by the government, are also trying to create platforms for artists to be seen.

What kind of response has the Taipei Fringe gotten from the audience?

I think the festival has done quite successfully in the past two years establishing itself as a place to see young artists. We have been lucky to have a lot of young artists coming to the festival every year. They feel it’s an important platform to be a part of and we also try very hard to do program exchanges. For example we have worked with Macao Fringe Festival for the past years to send our award winners to the Macao Fringe to perform. So that way they can organize a tour show and  make the Fringe festival as one of their stops and tour to other places as well. We don’t want it to be only a one time festival for them, it should be a festival that would extend their artistic careers and help them became better artists.

As we are now in EARS on Shanghai and EARS is all about building collaboration between Europe and Asia, do you have some aspirations in that field?

Yes, definitely. In Taiwan there are several European countries that are big arts promoters, Germany and France for example. They do a lot of funding and bring artists from Europe to Taiwan. Coming to EARS is interesting, as this is a very new forum. I’m very curious how it will build connections. I think it’s very important as Asia is the place where everything is happening at the moment. We want to reach out but I think that the rest of the world also wants to reach out to us. So I think this kind of a platform or forum is important for all people involved.

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