Taipei-based Dutch puppet master Robin Ruizendaal draws his inspiration from Taiwanese folklore and Western fairy tales in his bid to promote the island's traditional art of glove puppetry.

In so doing, Ruizendaal, director of a leading Taiwanese puppet museum and its troupe of theatrical puppeteers, has created a repertoire that has caught the fancy of local and international audiences alike.

His multinational troupe features Taiwanese puppet master Chen Xi-huang, son of legendary puppeteer Li Tian-lu, Chen's protege Massimo Godoli Peli of Italy and a crew of narrators, light and stage designers, and a puppet maker.

The team has travelled as far as Russia and Central America to stage Taiwanese puppet theatre in some 30 countries and have collaborated with their peers in Asia and Europe.

"People are always surprised to see that the leader of a Taiwanese puppet troupe is a Westerner," said Ruizendaal, who also serves as the lead script writer. "I think this shows that Taiwan is more internationalised and more open-minded towards outsiders."

Ruizendaal came to the island some 15 years ago to help plan a puppetry festival after gaining his doctorate in Sinology on Chinese marionette theatre from the University of Leiden in Holland.

As part of his studies he did research in China's southeastern Fujian province where glove puppetry was popular in the 19th century. While there are no records to show just when glove puppetry originated, some scholars believe it dates back to the Sung dynasty (960-1279 AD) when various forms of puppetry were prevalent.

Also known as "budaixi", it later spread to Taiwan as people migrated from mainland China, and was performed mainly at religious festivals.

A challenge

Puppeteers manoeuvre glove dolls on ornate wooden stages to present historical and martial arts stories, often with stunts such as somersaults or plate-juggling.

After working as a curator at a paper museum for a while, Ruizendaal joined the TTT Puppet Centre — now renamed the Lin Liu-Hsin Puppet Theatre Museum after its founder, Paul Lin's father.

The four-storey museum, located in Taipei's Dadaocheng area where puppet troupes once thrived, boasts a collection of some 7,000 puppetry artefacts from across Asia.

"There is a large puppetry audience in Taiwan where television puppet drama is popular," Ruizendaal said. "But it is still a big challenge to get people to buy tickets and go see puppetry at theatres."

There are an estimated 300 puppet troupes in Taiwan mostly performing at religious fairs, while only 10 groups are doing theatrical puppetry, according to Ruizendaal.

To broaden the appeal of theatrical puppetry, Ruizendaal has fused the traditional Taiwanese puppetry with Western story-telling and theatrical effects to create an original repertoire.

"I draw inspirations from my upbringing and from the sinology and Chinese culture I have studied," he said.

One brainchild is 'Marco Polo', a love story inspired by the Italian explorer famous for his travels to imperial China. It is staged with dialogue in Taiwanese and Italian against a background of classical Chinese music and Italian opera.

Keeping spirit alive

"We want to keep the spirit of classic puppetry alive with some modern effects. We hope to produce refined theatrical puppetry even if we have to call everyone to sell a ticket," said Ruizendaal.

But he admitted it is difficult to promote works with a traditional theme such as "The Honourable Thief Liao Tianding" about a Taiwanese folk hero performed on a vintage wooden stage.

Ruizendaal lamented that Taiwan, not unlike like other Asian countries heavily influenced by Western pop culture, is faced a lack of interest among young people in traditional puppetry.

"There are people coming from France and Spain to study Taiwanese puppetry at our museum but local youth think it's more sexy to become film makers, video artists or disc jockeys," he said.

"It seems crazy to them to study the obsolete puppetry. There is a crisis to pass on the craft if nobody wants to learn it," he said, adding that the museum hopes to attract new blood by offering free puppeteer apprenticeships.