to 84, 85) By Sofia Wu

CNA Staff Writer

Children’s laughter rang out on a recent evening at Cimei Junior High School on the southernmost islet of the Penghu archipelago as the famed Paper Windmill Theatre from Taiwan proper took to the stage with its trademark children’s play “Windmill Fantasia.”

The open-air drama performance on the school’s playground created the same buzz as a temple festival, drawing an audience of more than 800 children and adults — the biggest ever for any public event held on the normally tranquil remote isle, which used to be a midpoint for Chinese immigrants traveling to Taiwan in ancient times.

“Windmill Fantasia” featured selected acts from major productions of the troupe, with a chubby wizard character helping string together six otherwise independent stories.

The play includes a story about Don Quixote and segments exposing children to music and dance as well as a multimedia show aimed at teaching young children to be courageous in pursuing their dreams and helping cultivate their love for the arts.

If anything, the play symbolized the travails of simply getting the Paper Windmill Theatre to Cimei and the quixotic quest of Wu Yi-ju, a Cimei Junior High School teacher, whose chance of success were initially as remote as that of Don Quixote himself slaying the windmills he saw as ferocious giants.

Determined to bring the troupe to her backwater hometown, Wu initiated a fund-raising campaign to take advantage of the troupe’s “First Mile, Kid’s Smile — Arts for Children in 319 Townships” project launched two years earlier to bring the performing arts to children around Taiwan within three and a half years.

But she knew it was a longshot.

“While I really hoped that the troupe would grace a stage in Cimei, I didn’t expect it to happen at first, given the long distance and high transport costs,” Wu recalled.

Learning earlier this year that “Project 319″ was still running and that the troupe had traveled to all of the country’s outlying regions except Penghu, Wu mustered up the courage to file an application with the Taipei-based troupe.

At the time, the Paper Windmill Theatre was preparing a tour of Penghu, the largest of Taiwan’s outlying islands. Acting on Wu’s application, it agreed to put Cimei on its Penghu itinerary that already included stops in four other townships in the county — Husi, Siyu, Baisha and Wanan.

Money, however, remained an obstacle. Under its “Project 319, ” the Paper Windmill Theatre will perform in any district that can put up NT$350,000 (US$10,606) to cover the cost of performing and putting up a makeshift stage for each presentation.

For the Cimei show, though, challenging transportation issues pushed the cost to at least NT$600,000.

“As we wanted to give our residents a national-class stage show, the troupe had to rent special vessels to tow three 15-ton trucks loaded with all sorts of stage props and equipment from Magong, Penghu’s capital, to Cimei, ” Wu said.

The trucks had to be shipped in early morning hours to take advantage of high tides.

Wu created a blog to raise the needed funds for the performance. “We sent out the message that the remote village needed the performing arts to enrich villagers’ lives, ” Wu recalled. “The response was warm, particularly those from Internet surfers.”

In addition to a stream of small donations from local residents, larger sums came from individual bloggers or Internet users and entrepreneurs.

The extra transport cost was covered by donations from a couple and an engineer working in Taiwan’s high-tech heartland — the Hsinchu Science Park.

Their generosity was motivated partly by a tour they once took of Cimei and their memory of its natural beauty but also by their desire, like that of many other donors, to share their love for the arts with Cimei’s children and other residents.

For many children and adults in the audience, the show marked the first time they had seen a live theatrical performance.

A junior high school student said watching a live stage play under a clear starry sky was exciting. “The scene of Don Quixote fighting a huge windmill was inspiring,” she said.

Wu said she personally was impressed and deeply moved by the cast’s professionalism and dedication. During the day, they helped set up the makeshift stage — similar in size to that in Taipei’s National Theater — and rehearsed. After the performance, they dismantled the stage overnight.

The Cimei leg was the theatre company’s 200th performance since Project 319 was launched in December 2006, and Lee Yung-feng, the chief executive officer of the Paper Windmill Cultural Foundation who initiated the ambitious program.

The group, Lee said, has tried to help bridge the increasingly widening gap in the quality of life between urban and rural areas.

“We believe that a child’s first inspiration through the arts can be a life-changing experience,” Lee said. “Once planted, the seeds of the arts — a drama or a musical experience — can grow into a tree full of the fruits of opportunity.”

Noting that exposure to the arts can cultivate the young, creative minds of tomorrow’s leaders, Lee said they should never be a luxury only for city kids.

“Children in the countryside are also entitled to enjoy the arts,” he stressed.

Over the past two and half years, the troupe has traveled to 174 villages and small towns — bringing a national-level child theater to indigenous tribes in remote mountain areas as well as under the stars in isolated outlying islands.

“More than 420,000 children and parents have seen the play,” said Cheng Ya-li, the troupe’s administrative manager.

With a project of this scale, Cheng said, financial support is crucial.

“Our financial support comes 100 percent from public donations. There’s no limit to how much people can give, ” Cheng explained, but added that contributions from the government or political organizations are not allowed to preserve the group’s neutrality.

Donors can pick a specific township they want to help. When the contributions for a certain township reach the NT$350,000 target, the troupe hits the road and puts on a show.

According to Cheng, most people make donations to their hometowns, while others pick villages where they performed their military service, fell in love for the first time, or produced special memories.

“More than 17,619 individual and corporate donors have contributed over NT$100 million so far, ” she noted.

Many cast members said they feel lucky to be involved in the project and travel across the country as “children’s smiles are the best encouragment.”