Ching-Ming Liu, a well-known actress in Taipei theatre circles since the early 1980s, established U-Theatre in 1988 as an expression of her personal desire to reacquaint herself with Taiwanese and Chinese cultures as well as to introduce such traditional cultural elements into modern theatrical performance. Before U-Theatre, nearly all theatrical efforts in Taiwan took Western modern theatrical techniques and approaches as their foundation. Ching-Ming Liu, framing U-Theatre's approach to performance within the imperative of "reacquainting one with oneself", has broken the mold and made Taiwanese and Chinese cultures the base ingredients of U-Theatre performances.
In their first five years, U-Theatre focused on learning from Taiwan folk artists the forms and skills of traditional theatrical performance. Ching-Ming Liu concurrently arranged a training curriculum to teach the various schools of Western modern theater. The early works of U-Theatre were adaptations of Chinese classic tales from a Taiwanese perspective, combining song and dance together with traditional religious elements.
In 1993, Ching-Ming Liu invited Chee-Mun Wong, a professional traditional Chinese percussionist with nearly twenty years of experience, to instruct U-Theatre members in music, especially in the performance of traditional Chinese drums. Wong's deep-held conviction that, "to learn to play the drum, one must first learn meditation", inspired the adoption of meditation, and later Chinese martial arts, into the central core of the U-Theatre training curriculum. These two elements have since become essential elements of all U-Theatre performances.
"Performance is the representation of the best aspects of life" is the oft-repeated mantra of Ching-Ming Liu that has come to define all U-Theatre performances. The attention U-Theatre places on raising life quality and its expression through theater makes U-Theatre unique in comparison with other modern theater groups.
The "outward" nature of U-Theatre performances, expressing a search for cultural roots, during the first five years was followed by an "inward" focus, through which U-people work to achieve inner peace and then project that peace into their work. Audiences thus become active participants in performances as they share in the heavenly grace projected by performers.
In 1997, U-Theatre celebrated its tenth anniversary with an original work - The Sound of the Ocean. The work represents milestones in the efforts that the U-people have made to both achieve strict body discipline and total freedom of the mind. The Sound of Ocean is a theatrical piece focused on performers. While the audience will recognize in it elements of music, dance, and drama, the energy level of performers in The Sound of Ocean represents an achievement far beyond ordinary theatrical works.
U-Theatre members have honed their artistic and spiritual skills on their mountain workshop over many years now. They lead simple lives, which are fully reflected in the unique works they have developed. While it is unclear whether performers in old China followed similar creative processes and forms of simple living, the members of U-Theatre are resolute in their commitment to continue facing their lives with honesty and pursing inner peace.
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