TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – After SamadhiTang Creative Puppet Troupe gained initial attention through their debut exhibition in Chiayi’s Koji Pottery Museum in 2011, they began receiving invitations from the Tourism Bureau to hold exhibitions and performances overseas as a way to promote Taiwanese culture.

However, they realized in order to successfully promote Taiwanese glove puppetry, languages are of utmost importance. 

That is why the troupe started to collaborate with the faculty and students of Wenzhou Ursuline University (WUU). 

Professors at the Department of Foreign Languages helped translate stories and the names of characters into such languages as English, French, and German, while students joined forces with the troupe on tour as voice-overs.

“It was difficult,” Yen Jen-hung (嚴仁鴻), executive director of SamadhiTang, told the Taiwan News reporter, to translate scripts written in Taiwanese into western languages, and even more difficult to interpret the particular tones of oral Taiwanese; but to Yen, it was important to "let the foreign audience understand the stories and dialogues of our performances.”

“If foreigners do not understand the story, they will just take photos with the beautiful puppets and leave,” said Yen. “But if they understand what we are doing, they are usually fascinated and impressed.”

Such cooperation might be unprecedented, but it has definitely won over the heart of the audience. Apart from languages, SamadhiTang is also aware of the importance of music in delivering a good performance.

Teamed up with a group of local musicians, the troupe has put on several puppet musicals since 2015. With the combination of eastern and western instruments, including pipa (琵琶), erhu (二胡), and keyboard, the puppet theater was performed with live music, and each character had their theme song for their appearance on stage.

The troupe started out as a group using their spare time to make glove puppets, as all of them had their full-time job. It remains much the same as of now, and members have to juggle with work and the troupe's activities which now include workshops of puppet making and manipulation.

"We don't keep our skills or knowledge secret," said Yen, adding, "we want to share what we know so that more people will be interested in Taiwanese glove puppetry."

SamadhiTang now has dozens of volunteers willing to help with the troupe's activities at their own cost.

“Because we are non-profit. We never charge anything for our exhibitions or workshops," explained Yen, adding, "but those who agree with our ideas would naturally come to join us.”

The troupe is planning to hold island-wide touring exhibitions starting next January in cooperation with Mitsukoshi Department Store.

Yen said they had been invited by the department store for four years in a row, and each time they got a bigger venue than the previous one.

With so many projects going on and their job to deal with, it is striking that the troupe is even shooting a micro-film using the space provided by the Chiayi Performing Arts Center.

“We have been filming it for half a year but have only produced about 15 minutes of footage,” said Yen, referring to the fact that the troupe can only use spare time to film due to their job.

“We just need another six months to finish it,’ said Yen with confidence.

台北(台灣新聞)－在三昧堂創意木偶團隊最初是2011年在嘉義市交趾陶博物館展出後成名，被台灣觀光局邀請到海國展覽和演出，推廣台灣文化。

他們了解若想要成功推廣台灣布袋戲文化，語言是最重要的。

這也就是為什麼三昧堂要和文藻外語大學各學院師生們合作的原因。

文藻外語大學的教授們協助三昧堂將他們創作的故事與戲偶角色姓名詩號，翻譯成英文，法文，德文，學生們也跟著三昧堂一同出國展演協助翻譯。

「這真的很困難！」三昧堂的行銷總監嚴仁鴻告訴台灣英文新聞的記者，要把文詞意境優美的台語詩詞翻成西方語言，而且更難的是解譯台語原有的特殊口音真的很不容易，雖然如此，嚴仁鴻說「更重要的是要讓外國觀眾與貴賓了解我們演出時的故事情節和人物對話內容。」

「如果外國的觀眾無法理解故事內容，他們只會拍一下這些華麗的戲偶的照片，然後就離開了。」嚴仁鴻說。「但如果他們了解我們在做什麼，他們都會因此深深著迷而且對台灣文化印象深刻。」

這種合作可能是前所未有的，但肯定贏得了外國觀眾的心。除了語言，三昧堂也意識到音樂在演出方面的重要性。

他們與一群嘉義在地音樂家（迴響樂集）合作，自2015年以來，雙方已經合作演出了幾場布袋戲音樂劇。通過琵琶（琵琶），二胡和鍵盤的東西方樂器組合，布袋戲演出搭配現場演奏音樂，每個角色都有他們的主題曲在劇場舞台上出現。

從三昧堂成團開始，成員們都是使用業餘時間來製作布袋戲偶，因為他們本身都有全職工作。 現在成名後仍然是一樣，成員們必須同時忙於工作和三昧堂的活動，和時間競賽，現在還開設製作戲偶和戲偶操作的研習營。

「我們不會將我們的技術藏私。」嚴仁鴻說。「反而我們希望可以分享更多我們所學所知，讓更多人對台灣的布袋戲有興趣。」

目前，三昧堂已有數十名志工願意自費協助三昧堂的各種活動。

「因為我們不以營利為目標。」嚴仁鴻說。「我們的展覽或研習課程都是免費讓民眾參加的，認同我們理念的人自然會加入我們。」

三昧堂將於明年(2018年)1月與新光三越百貨公司合作一場大展，還有計劃舉辦新光三越全台灣分店巡迴展覽。

雖然同時有這麼多項目的工作在進行和處理，令人驚奇的是，這個劇團甚至使用嘉義表演藝術中心提供的空間拍攝了一部微電影「三昧創世錄」。

「這部微電影我們已經拍攝了半年，但只拍了大約15分鐘的鏡頭，」嚴仁鴻說，事實上，這個劇團只能用成員的放假時間來拍攝這部微電影。

「應該再半年就可以完成!」嚴仁鴻說道。

 

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