1 Bhabha, Homi, The Location of Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 86Google Scholar.

2 Ibid.

3 Another English translation of Golden Bough Performance Society that is currently in use is Golden Bough Theatre.

4 Koa-a-hi is pronounced ‘goa-a-hi’. koa-a literarily means ‘songs’, and hi ‘plays’. O-phe-la-hi is pronounced ‘o-pe-la-hi’. O-phe-la is a transliteration of ‘opera’, and together with the hi part the term means ‘opera plays’.

5 Fu-chang, Wang, Dangdai Taiwan Shehui de Zuqun Xiangxiang (Ethnic Imagination in Contemporary Taiwan) (Taipei: Socio Publishing Co. Ltd, 2003), p. 94Google Scholar.

6 The U-Theatre Company was founded in 1988 by Liu Jing-min, a former student of Grotowski. Liu later changed her name and is now known as Liu Ruo-yu. In calling attention to the bodies of Taiwanese performers, the company was influential in initiating the search for Taiwan's grassroots cultures and identity. See Craig Quintero, ‘Performing Culture/Cultural Performances: The Little Theatre Movement in Taiwan’, Northwestern University dissertation, 2000.

7 Yu Hui-fen, interviewed by Liang Peilin, 21 March 2006.

8 Ong Eng-ju (Wang Rong-yu), interviewed by Liang Peilin, 8 November 2005.

9 Taiwan has been subjected to various waves of colonization throughout its modern history. These include the Dutch, the Spanish, the Ming and the Qing. The island later became Japan's first colony and remained under its rule for fifty years from 1895 to 1945. From 1945 onwards the island came under the rule of the KMT, and was governed by the Republic of China. Martial law, imposed by the KMT, was not lifted until 1987.

10 From 1937, the Japanese government enforced an assimilation policy as part of the war effort and theatre was subjected to censorship. Censorship tested the flexibility and creativity of koa-a-hi practitioners, who invented various strategies to dodge police surveillance. In performances, classical plays based on Chinese history and tales were disguised and replaced by Japanese equivalents. In theatres, red and green lights were installed as a police-warning device. Actors would put on a Japanese play under the keen scrutiny of the police. Yet the moment the police left the theatre, the actors would begin a ‘real’ koa-a-hi performance through quick costume and make-up changes. See Fuling, Yang, Taiwan Koa-a-hi Lishi (A History of Koa-a-hi in Taiwan) (Taichung: Chenxing, 2002), p. 96Google Scholar

11 Ong Eng-ju, interviewed by Liang Peilin, 19 July 2010.

12 The term ‘Mainlander’ refers to the nearly one million Chinese migrants who followed the KMT to Taiwan in 1949. Most mainlanders were hired in the military, educational and civil sectors, and on the whole were heavily dependent on the KMT for financial survival.

13 Liau Thiam-teng (1883–1909) was a thief well known for resisting the Japanese authorities by stealing and robbing the rich to help the poor.

14 Traditionally, koa-a-hi troupes are family-owned and family-run enterprises solely supported by private sponsors. Typically, an actor joins the family/troupe from a young age and refers to the female troupe owner as matron, indicating that the tie between the actors and the troupe owner is both professional and familial.

15 ‘Electronic Flower Cars’ refers to striptease performances given on highly ornate and mobile stages. The performances are usually given on occasions such as weddings, funerals and temple festivals. Zhu Geliang (1946–) is a Taiwanese MC, singer, dancer and actor. He is well known for his restaurant shows, which are extravagant and glamorous in style.

16 Marwan, Kraidy, Hybridity, or the Cultural Logic of Globalization (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005), p. 58Google Scholar.

17 Balme, Christopher, Decolonizing the Stage: Theatrical Syncretism and Post-colonial Drama (Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Ching, Leo T. S., Becoming ‘Japanese’: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), p. 39Google Scholar.

19 Ma-cho is pronounced ‘Mazo’. She is the sea goddess and guardian of those who travel on the ocean. Widely worshipped in the coastal regions of Taiwan, Ma-cho has a large crowd of followers who make a week-long, annual walking pilgrimage in her honour. Actors from the GBPS have experienced the pilgrimage, walking with others in the procession that is led by the sedan of the sea goddess.

20 Huang Shuyuan, interviewed by Liang Peilin, 6 January 2006.

21 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, p. 178.

22 Jianghu literally means ‘rivers and lakes’. It is often translated as ‘the world of adventure or chivalry’. Teri Jayne Silvio describes the term as denoting ‘a space which potentially hovers on the margins of all actual places’ and ‘cannot be defined in terms of physical space’. See Teri Jayne Silvio, ‘Drag Melodrama/Feminine Public Sphere/Folk Television: “Local Opera” and Identity in Taiwan’, University of Chicago dissertation, 1998, p. 166.

23 The Hok-lo verb ‘to rip’ does not correspond to any written character, and ‘e’ is used to denote the verb phonetically.

24 Quoted from the production of The Lady Knight-Errant of Taiwan – Peh-sio-lan, which I saw in Daxi, July 2004; Taichung, 10 December 2005; Yilan, 6 January 2006; and Chungli, 9 December 2005.

25 When PSL was first performed in 1996, these two remarks were clearly making fun of the totalitarian rule of the KMT, though in later productions, such as in 2006 when my fieldwork was carried out, they took on a different comic–political resonance – specifically, for instance, pointing to Taiwan's oppositional party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), that was in office and the many corruption charges that had been brought against the then president, Chen Shui-bian. Political disillusionment and dissatisfaction felt by the Taiwanese people once again reaffirmed the central message of the play: rather than having faith in any one party, it seems, after all, the people must rely on self-help or a locally self-made heroine such as the lady knight-errant.

26 Cheng Hsiang-ling, interviewed by Liang Peilin, 4 January 2006; Kao Ming-chien, interviewed by Liang Peilin, 13 January 2006; Lee Yun-chung, interviewed by Liang Peilin, 22 March 2006.