ABSTRACT
Taking On the Road, a musical theater production of Taiwan’s National Concert Hall in 2010, as an example, this chapter deals with musical modernity of Taiwanese Indigenous people. This musical was a collaboration between the Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra and Puyuma musicians from Nanwang Village. Located in southeast Taiwan, this village is connected with the National Concert Hall by Highway Nine, at a distance of about 360 kilometers. Through the performance of Indigenous songs, an Indigenous musical story beneath the simple plot of the musical was narrated. By examining how the songs were composed and how they were performed at both ends of Highway Nine, this chapter aims to trace trajectories of contemporary Puyuma Indigenous music. The trajectories indicate impacts of the Japanese school song education, assimilation policies of Japanese and Chinese governments, and the Campus Folksong Movement. The Indigenous people’s musicking, however, demonstrates a form of indigeneity celebrating family values and Indigenous identity as a response to the musical modernity related to the settler impacts. This study thus may help us understand how sociocultural interactions between the Indigenous people and settlers shape contemporary Indigenous music and how the Indigenous people create, convey, and perceive its meanings through musicking.
