"Creating Theater at Home" delves into family relationships through traditional opera, starting at the Human Library-國立成功大學永續發展SDGs

The National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) General Education Center held the "Creative Theater Comes Home" presentation of the "Traditional Opera and Performing Arts" course on June 14, 2023, at the underground floor of the NCKU Library. This course, conducted in collaboration with the Graduate Institute of Arts and the Drama Master's Degree Program at the College of Liberal Arts under the Ministry of Education's Higher Education Deep Plowing Project, combines traditional opera, creative thinking, and the exploration of family relationships. It invited the Guoguang Opera Company, Taiwan Yue Opera Troupe, Wumu Photography Studio, and Tiantian Studio to present interdisciplinary cultural, creative, operatic, and family relationship practices. By engaging in learning across different fields, the course attempts to open the door to students' creative thinking and challenge them to demonstrate diverse creative forms of expression.

The "Creative Theater Comes Home" exhibition is divided into four main themes: "Station - Emotional Transit and Carriage," "Homeward Bound," "In Search of Lion Memories," and "Good Times Come in Pairs."

"Station - Emotional Transit and Carriage" focuses on physical performance, combining music with the concept of life and family journeys associated with train stations, interpreting the joys and sorrows behind a family story through bodily movements. "Homeward Bound" uses literature creation and personal conceptualization of home as starting points, aiming to evoke memories of family through the combination of words and sensory experiences. "In Search of Lion Memories" takes common family recreational activities as its starting point, visiting Tainan's sports industry, producing publicity materials, and arranging music and movements. Through this, it aims to reexamine local sports culture from the perspective of traditional opera and rediscover childhood family memories. "Good Times Come in Pairs" attempts to interpret cultural innovation through creative ceramic handcrafts and situational presentations, combining contemporary and traditional family concepts. Traditional opera elements are incorporated into the situational performance.

Assistant Professor Wei-Hsien Ma from the NCKU Institute of Arts, who teaches the "Traditional Opera and Performing Arts" course, stated that the world after the pandemic brings serious challenges to interpersonal communication and life, posing a test to human communication wisdom. Therefore, the overall planning of this course adopts the "Human Library" and "Real Contact, Dialogue" modes, starting from the students' own environment and the most intimate "family" relationships, and then exploring family relationships from the "essence" of culture for creative thinking, self-reflection, and understanding. Through interdisciplinary teaching at places like Lan's Blue Sun Printing and the NCKU Library, the course attempts to perceive aesthetic elements in daily objects, re-examine the essence of creativity, and describe, interpret, and reproduce multiple aspects of "creation." With theoretical learning and practical experience, collective artistic exploration aims to showcase the direction of creativity, allowing self-realization to become a life experience and art energy.

The core of the "Creative Theater Comes Home" exhibition is guided by "family." The content consists of unique family stories shared by the students in the course, combining traditional art with localization and artistry, containing rich text, physical expression, music arrangement, and ceramic handcrafts. This adds different artistic styles to the performance of the outcomes, enabling each student to express their own perspectives and viewpoints, shaping the uniqueness of traditional opera practice, performing arts, and creativity. It also encourages reflection, discussion, and sustainable development on the students' family environments concerning the SDG3 issue of healthy living and well-being.