In the 19th century, traditional puppet theater was introduced to Taiwan from Fujian Province, China, and with a fusion of diverse Hokkien accents and temple cultures, it gradually evolved into a local drama with a strong authentic flavor. During 1950s to 1970s, the art of “Jin Guang Puppet Theater”, represented by “The Scholar Swordsman Yen-Wen Shih”, emerged with the trend of home television, and became one of the mainstream entertainment in Taiwan. It replaced the traditional outdoor stage drama that focused more on the five tones of speech, delicate puppetry, and the use of traditional gongs and drums as background music. The three professors who founded the Seden Society Puppet Theatre Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the Seden) were aware of the traditional puppetry withering day by day. Thus in 1980s when the society became more open-minded after the lifting of martial law, they founded the Seden to devote themselves to the preservation of traditional Taiwanese puppet theater, corresponding to the “Grassroot Culture Renaissance Movement.”
The three founders have invited renowned artists in the name of scholars, such as Wang Hsu the maestro, to perform at universities, reversing the prejudices of puppet theater excluded from the realm of art, as well as promoting the public awareness for traditional arts. For more than three decades, the Seden has also been making great efforts to defend the declining puppet theater by acquiring ancient puppets, archiving narrative scripts from elder artists, holding stage workshops, and helping on-campus puppet theater groups to establish. In recent years, the regulations for the Seden’s collection have changed. Considering the social benefits brought by the publicization of cultural assets, Chairperson Jung-Hsiang Chen, in 2020, donated thousands of artifacts to his alma mater, National Chiao Tung University (the current National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, hereinafter referred to as NYCU); the “Seden Society Puppet Theater Cultural Artifacts Collection and Research Development Project” began immediately. In 2022, NYCU Library that houses these artifacts (hereinafter referred to as the Library) took over from the Institute of Applied Arts as the main unit in charge of the project.
During the first part of the project, which took up three years in total, the Institute of Applied Arts and the Library have gradually restored and digitized these precious collections including physical artifacts and historical materials of puppet theater. The second part of the project will take up another three years: aside from the current work of restoration and digitization of artifacts, the team will further reach people outside the university, such as rural schools, communities, and even local temples. With the lead of NYCU’s puppet theater club, the team not only preserve puppet theater at the level of “archiving collections”, but also creates brand new interpretations of traditional art with contemporary meaning through the tours, enabling these cultural artifacts to last in a more vibrant surroundings. Such development of the project matches the concept University Social Responsibility (USR), and gives more than simply fulfilling the goals of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Goal 11.4, that is, to “strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage”; the practice of the project also stands in line with Goal 4.7 of the SDGs, which is to “ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development” and Goal 8.9, to “devise and implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products.”
The second part of the project, in addition, will also take the advantages of campus merging by developing puppetry rehabilitation and other related medical courses that combine technological talents from Chiao Tung campus, as well as faculties of physical therapy or dementia treatment from Yang Ming campus. The university seeks to find solutions for current long-term care issues of nowadays’ aging society, thereby achieving Goal 3 of SDGs, “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages.”