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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》Taiwan-inspired lion dance troupe a Paris hit
Lion dance performers put on a show outside Taiwan wheel cake shop Ciao Roue in Paris on Saturday. Photo: CNA
Staff writer, with CNA
France’s first Taiwan-inspired lion dance troupe on Saturday made its debut on the streets of Paris as part of a wushu coach’s bid to promote temple culture in the European country.
The troupe performed in front of Ciao Roue, a Taiwanese-owned wheel cake shop. Despite only having trained for a few months, the show won cheers and applause from onlookers.
Troupe founder Ghyslain Kuehn on Sunday told reporters that he wants to promote Taiwanese temple culture in France.
Kuehn said that he loves temple celebrations — which traditionally incorporate lion dances, as well as Ba Jia Jiang （八家將, or “eight generals”） performances and other shows that incorporate large puppets of deities — because they are a way to preserve wushu culture.
The lion dance is commonly performed during temple celebrations in Taiwan. They integrated martial arts because of the strength the dancers required. Troupes of the past often also had self-defense training.
Ba Jia Jiang is a typical temple celebration that is said to ward off evil.
Troupes have been associated with gangs, in part given the links between temple-related organizations in Taiwan and local crime rings in news reports or in popular culture, which has taken its toll on the popularity of the tradition, but Kuehn said he is unaffected by such preconceptions.
He started learning wushu when he was 13 and has been pursuing the martial art for more than 20 years in Taiwan, his native France and China, including Hong Kong.
In 2016 he arrived in Taiwan to learn traditional martial arts. He trained in traditional Chinese medicine and several branches of wushu, with Lu Wen-rui （盧文瑞） as his trainer, and became the only foreign disciple under Wu Jun-yi （吳俊億）, with whom he trained in lion dance and Taiwanese war drums.
He met his wife, Liu Shih-ting （劉詩庭）, during his time in Taiwan, and last year returned to Paris with her with the hope of establishing a wushu academy.
In September last year, he founded the Academie Wukong Wushu, which has weekly lion dance courses.
Liu supports Kuehn’s passion, telling reporters that she hopes Taiwan’s temple culture and lion dances would not always evoke ideas of gangster activity.
Hopefully, people would learn to appreciate it as a demanding art form with deep cultural roots, she added.
The couple hopes to collaborate with more Taiwanese businesses and institutions on festive occasions.
Kuehn also aspires to teach Taiwanese war drums to protect and promote the culture, he said, adding that he wants to learn the Ba Jia Jiang craft so he can promote it in France.
“My biggest dream is to be able to form a temple celebration of zhentou （陣頭）, a Taiwanese folk performance team, in France,” Kuehn said.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
