• by Lin Zixin (taipei)
• Sunday, October 18, 2009
• Inter Press Service

An overlooked piece of Taiwan’s cultural history is slowly making its way back into people’s hearts and minds with the documentary ‘E Sha Age’, due to be shown this week.

The 85-minute long documentary features Taiwan’s defunct E Sha Song and Dance Group, as it reprises popular numbers from its repertoire with 17 students from the Kaohsiung Chung-Hwa School of Arts in the southern part of the island. The group’s name comes from those of two founding instructors.

A representative icon of entertainment in the baby boomer era, E Sha was famous for its musical performances during a time when strip shows were prevalent. The group draws strong influences from the Japanese Takarazuka Revue, an all-female musical theatre group noted for its extravagant Broadway-inspired productions.

Active from 1959 to 1985, E Sha reflects Taiwan’s cultural-political landscape of that time. 'E Sha has lived through Taiwan’s most turbulent years, and looking at its history is like looking at a snapshot of Taiwan’s modern history,' director Hsueh Chang-Hui explained.

This can be seen from the way E Sha’s repertoire captures the mood of the grassroots over the years. Under martial law, the group was forced to make revisions to the Chinese oldie ‘Tonight I’m Not Going Home’, which was banned as officials thought it promoted decadent behaviour. The song was subsequently given the go ahead only after the lyrics were changed to ‘Tonight I Must Go Home’.

Urban re-planning in 1985 saw the consolidation of independent cinemas, rendering the group without a venue for its performances and contributing to its demise. Another reason for the group’s dissolution was the passing on of its founder, Wang Zhen Yu. There has not been any performing group of a similar nature in Taiwan since.

Featuring traditional handicrafts alongside advanced lighting technology in its sets, E Sha was able to deliver performances that melded the best of international and local influences. These aided the group’s rise to fame in places like Taiwan, Hong Kong and South-east Asia.

For all its cultural value and popularity, E Sha seems to have now become just a distant memory of Taiwan’s baby boomers. Today, the group is practically unknown to the younger generation in this island of more than 23 million people.

Hsueh recounted the stark differences she observed during interviews. For instance, baby boomers share collective memories of going to E Sha shows, with some having gone as far as saving all their pocket money for the 250 New Taiwan Dollars (7.80 U.S. dollar) tickets to watch them. But the young have generally never heard of the group.

'We will lose an iconic part of our cultural heritage if we don’t do anything about it (E Sha’s memory).' Hsueh said, 'I’m fighting to preserve this piece of our heritage.'

There is little documentation of E Sha in Taiwan’s National Film Archives as the group was a private family-run business. Most of its materials were destroyed with the founder Wang’s death.

As a result, there was great difficulty in obtaining historical footage that was to be used as supplementary material in the documentary. The problem was overcome with the help of an E Sha fanatic from Hong Kong, who contributed his personal video collection.

‘E Sha Age’ therefore plays an important role in collecting and piecing together fragmented information that might otherwise go undiscovered.

The 17 students who were roped in to perform in the documentary are at a similar age as the original E Sha girls when they first joined the group. The first batch of E Sha girls numbered 52 and this figure was reduced to 32 in subsequent batches.

Hsueh believes that this is a meaningful and relevant experience for these students, and hopes the documentary will help to unite older E Sha fans with the younger generation, which is meeting E Sha for the first time. It is also a symbolic move to bring E Sha back to the cinemas, where its performances used to be staged.

While Hsueh was reserved about any ambition to bring the group back together, she admitted that she hoped the documentary could pave the way for the reproduction of a full-length E Sha performance resplendent in its former-year glory.

'I’ve never watched an original E Sha performance myself, and I’m always jealous when I see the sparkle in people’s eyes when they recall their experiences.' Hsueh lamented. 'I hope more people will have a chance to share in this experience.'

‘E Sha Age’ will be on screens in Taipei beginning on Oct. 23, 2009.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

Where next?

Advertisement