Following Michael Jackson – Back to the 80s and Bluesy Lee – Welcome to the 70s,
Wang Chia-ming, the Taishin Arts Award winning director and the Godfather of pop theatre, is adding SMAP X SMAP- In love with the 90s to his trilogy of popular culture.

Happiness signified by www, connecting to the world with 56K dial-up;
Happiness sang by Lin Chung in Going Forward, the fearless dream of our rock ‘n’ roll youth;
Happiness built with IKEA, furniture DIY for dummies;
Happiness portrayed in AsunaroHakusho and Long Vacation, the forever Takuya Kimura and the hopeless romantic;
Happiness played by Tetsuya Komuro and NamieAmuro, Can You Celebrate singing in the headphones


Our 90s, our march of happiness.
But as we headed full-speed towards the final destination of happiness,
the so-called happiness had long departed…

“It wasn’t the era we lost, but the courage.”–AsunaroHakusho


In 2010, theatre director Wang Chia-ming fired up the popular culture and common phenomena of the 80s in Taiwan via Michael Jackson – Back to the 80s, the first of his pop culture trilogy, with the flashing energy of pop concerts and declarations of frenzied fans. Similarly themed in pop culture, SMAP X SMAP- In love with the the 90s is a new production anchored in the 90s, aiming to explore the cultural mixture in Taiwan from the microscopic historical viewpoint.

Michael Jackson – Back to the 80s demonstrated how the American culture had influenced Taiwan in depth, SMAP X SMAP- In love with the 90s, on the other hand, targets the post-colonization identification in Taiwan, demonstrated by the influence of various common culture from Japan, drawing inspirations from dramas including Long Vacation, 101st Proposal, Tokyo Love Story, Kou KouKyoushi, and Forbidden Love; animations such as SLAMDUNK, YuYuHakusho, and Evangelion; as well as pop stars like NamieAmuro, UtadaHikaru and Tetsuya Komuro. Important societal events in Taiwan were also collaged, including the murders of Bai Hsiao-yen, Iguchi Mariko, Peng Wang-ru, and Liu Pang-yu, the flaming of kindergarten school bus, the Qiandao Lake mystery, and the fire at Wei-er-kang Restaurant; the rise of New Taiwanese Song Movement led by Lin Chung and Chen Ming-chang; indigenous singers such as A-mei and Power Station became smash hits; and finally the introduction of IKEA in the 90s which had a tremendous impact on the spatial and housing aesthetics in Taiwan, and brought about the DIY fever.   

Languages used in the play come in a mixture of Japanese and Taiwanese with manga-style subtitling, scenes are filmed on-site with the background-extraction effect enabled by DIY stage settings to be assembled and disassembled on demand, all which point to the heterogeneous space and culture in our society. Geological factors behind natural disasters including the 1995 Kobe Earthquake in Japan and 1999 September 21 Earthquake in Taiwan were also found in the play, highlighting the fact that though on different islands, the two countries are connected by the same unstable seismic belt, while sharing a peppy, happy but fundamentally unstable era.

*Post-performance discussion
In Chinese after the opening performance.



Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group
Founded in the summer of 1995, Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group owes its name to the fictional character in Virginia Woolf’s novel A Room of One’s Own, meaning to liberate women’s talents from the oppression of patriarchy. Limiting itself to no specific issues or conventional aesthetics, SWSG takes materials from all arts inspiring to create original theatrical works, which have been brought to participate in many theater festivals in Taiwan as well as overseas for years.

Most of the SWSG’s members started their partnership of staging theatrical productions in college years, who were then members from the Drama Club of National Taiwan University (NTU) and the Linear Theater Group, comprised of the students from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature of the Night School of NTU. Such partnership continued strongly after their graduation, and led to the birth of the SWSG in 1995 with its debut production A Boring Life, written and directed by its chief creative artist Wei Ying-chuan.

With vigorous productivity, every year SWSG stages two or more new productions since its genesis. To name some, in 1997 SWSG was invited to stage A Room of One’s Own in Hong Kong Art Center, followed by another well-received new production 666─Limbo, staged in August in Tiny Alice Theater, Tokyo. As the artistic reputation of Director Wei and of the other performers was gradually recognized, invitations from theater festivals in Taiwan and overseas have begun to multiply yearly since. In addition to the study of movements, these years Wei incorporated modern literature interpreted into her works as inspirational resources, especially from the legacy by female artists and writers. In 2003, our new production Emily Dickinson just toured from [Girl Play Festival](Hong Kong); Six Memos for the Next Millennium─Movements will head for Kobe (Japan) and Beijing (China) in Dec 2003 and Paris in May 2004.

On the other hand, Wang Chia-ming, the other full-fledged director of SWSG, directed Ebola: A Pure Rational Critique of the Ethics of Virus in December, 2000 in Taipei, enriching SWSG’s creative energy with new perspective. His 2002 production Zodiac II was highly recognized and proudly awarded the 1st Taishin Arts Awards—Performing Art Yearly Top 10. In 2007, his production Tzen，。 was awarded Special Jury’s Award and Performing Art Yearly Top 10, the 6th Taishin Arts Awards. And again in 2008, Listen to Me Please~ was awarded the 7th Taishin Arts Awards—Performing Art Yearly Top 10.

Besides staging theatrical productions in domestic and international festivals, Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group is planning to make its further step toward making tour performances around the country, developing educational theater activities and engaging itself actively in matters of national cultural politics at stake.




Director    Wang, Chia-ming
Bachelor of Geography of National Taiwan University; MFA of Graduate School of Theatre Performance, Taipei National University of the Arts. He is adjunct instructor in the Department of Drama, National Taiwan University, and the general director of Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group.

Wang has been working on experimental theatre for more than ten years, always keeping his creative works a fusion of tradition and innovation, a daring integration of popularity and avant-garde. His works are well-received by the general public without losing its critical power; experimental without becoming pompous claptraps. He intended to introduce theater art to the public and at the same time advance the cultural aesthetics.

These years Wang was absorbed in probing the possibilities of new expressions on language, performance and audio/voice in theatre, which invoked fervent discussion from both positive and critical sides. To expand the limit of the empty space as well as to enrich the definition of theater as an total art, he opened himself up to cooperate with artists from cross genres, such as dancers, filmmakers, symphony orchestra, visual artists, academic acrobats, underground bands, music players and even DJ and VJ. By breaking the boundary between art genres, Wang hoped to see through the blind spot on theatrical creativity, and furthermore to explore different routes for artists to create together for a theater of new meanings.

As a director and playwright in Chinese, Wang has his works mostly tour to places where Chinese is used. Wang also worked for other productions as a producer or stage manager, which gave him the chances to tour to Hong Kong, Tokyo, Osaka, Paris, Berlin, Macau, Busan, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, etc. In addition to theatre, he also works as assistant director for commercial ads, director for music videos and fashion shows. In 2009, Wang was invited as opening show director for the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung.

◎2009 Once, upon Hearing the Skin Tone Awarded the 8th Taishin Arts Awards- Performing Art Yearly first award
◎2008 Listen to Me Please~ Awarded the 7th Taishin Arts Awards- Performing Art Yearly Top 10
◎2008 Plastic Holes Invited production by Robert Wilson for the 2008 Watermill Summer Program
◎2007 Tsen，  。   Awarded Special Jury’s Award and Performing Art Yearly Top 10, the 6th Taishin Arts Awards
◎2005-2006 granted by Asian Cultural Council to exchange in New York for 6 months
◎2004-2005 granted by the Education Ministry to exchange in Cite des International Arts in Paris as a resident artist for one year
◎2004 Zodiac in Developing Curetted to participate in City Odysseys-Loosing and Lost exhibition, which was awarded the 3rd Taishin Arts Awards- Visual Art Yearly Top 7
◎2002 Zodiac II Awarded the 1st Taishin Arts Awards- Performing Art Yearly Top 10


2001 ~ 2010 Theatre Works directed by Wang, Chia-Ming
Michael Jackson-back to the 80’s (2010 Taipei Arts Festival)
Mansion de Wongs 2009
05161973 Wislawa Szymborska (2009 Taipei—summer production of Department of Theatre, Taiwan National University of the Arts) 
Once, upon Hearing the Skin Tone (2009 Taipei—The Eslite Spring Stage)
Plastic Holes (2008 New York--Robert Wilson Watermill Summer Program)
Romeo and Juliet –metamorphic version (2008 Taipei—year production of Department of Drama and Theatre, National Taiwan University)
R . Z   (2008 Taipei--International Theatre Festival)
Tsen，   。(2007 Taipei--New Ideas Festival)
The Seducer’s Diary (2007 Hong Kong--Cattle depot Artist Village)
Vincent van Gogh and 7 Performers (2006 Taipei--The Eslite Basement Open Festival)
Michael Jackson (2005 Taipei--Crazy Elite Festival Opening)
Poi, Poison, Poisson (2005 Paris--the Gallery of Cite des Art)
Full Moon Feast (2004 Taipei—Special outdoor event for The Moon Festival)
Where is “Home”? (2004 Taipei-- Audio/installation Performance)
30P: eslite anti-reader (2003 Taipei--The Eslite Basement Festival)
Titus Andronicus（2003 Taipei--Shakespeare in Taipei Festival Opening）
Listen to me, Please~（2002 Taipei--the 8th Crown Arts Festival; 2005 Qindao-- Qingdao Theatre Festival; 2009 Beijiung—Beijing Four Seasons Theatre Festival）
Zodiac （2001 Taipei--the 7th Crown Arts Festival; 2002 Taipei--The Experimental Theater Series of the National Theatre 15th Anniversary Festival; 2007 Beijing—the 1st Asian City Theatre Festival）


Director    Chia-Ming Wang
Produced by   
Producer    Nitta Yukio
Stage Designer    Yi-Ju Huang
Costume Designer    Sara Lai
Lighting Designer    Tien-Hung Wang
Music Designer    Chien-Chi Chen
Performer   FA, Hung-Yuan Wang, Shih-Chun Wang, Daniel Wang, An-Ru Zhu, Wei-Wei Wu, Tom Chou, Hsuen-Huei Shih, Hua-Chien Hsu, Joshan Kao, Tai-Hao Tsuei, Dino Chang, Nien-Tzu Chang, Winnie Chang, Yao-Jen Chang, Jo-Ying Mei, Nitta Yukio, Tzu-Yi Mo, Wei-Jyun Tao, Kim Chen, Yuan-Rong Liao, Andy Tsai, Hsuan-Yen Tsai...
Sponsor     
Photo copyright© Mark Wu


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