Orchids to return to Winter Garden for Taiwan fest

By Vanessa Romo

The palm-treed atrium of the World Financial Center Winter Garden in Battery Park City will be transformed into a Taiwanese Garden of Eden, featuring 10,000 butterfly orchids, bamboo trees and stones from Oct. 5 through 11.

The display will be an art installation and a major component of TAIWANtoday, an arts festival co-presented by the Taipei Cultural Center and the World Financial Center. The festival will also include daily tea ceremonies and staged nanguan musical performances specifically choreographed for the Winter Garden. The performers, dressed in lavish period costumes will also play their string and woodwind instruments strolling through the atrium throughout various events. Master artisans will hold bamboo-crafting workshops to demonstrate the various artistic and functional roles it plays in Taiwanese life.

“A lot of people think of Taiwan as just a manufacturing culture, an industrial place without beauty but we want [people] to think about the higher culture,” said Emmy Tu, a cultural officer for the Taipei Cultural Center. Each of the activities planned for the festival has a long history and significance in our culture and other people will enjoy learning about them, said Tu.

Taiwan Today:

Floral Artists’ Q & A: Oct. 5 -6 at 12 p.m., 12:30 p.m., 1p.m., 1:30 p.m. and 2 p.m.

Tea Ceremony: Oct. 7 and 11 at 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m., Oct. 8–10, 12, at 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3pm.

Nanguan Staged Performance: Oct. 7 and 11 at 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m.

Bamboo Crafting: Oct. 7 and 11 at 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m., Oct. 8-11 at 12 p.m., 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.

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