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 Taiwanese
designer Liu Kai doesnąt think that society is
going downhill, he thinks it has hit rock bottom.
Today, everyone marvels over the effects of computer
graphics, embraces the high speed of daily life,
and revels in decadence. But Liu Kai, born in
1957 and raised in the heart of historical Taipei,
wants to show them something better.
 Growing
up around Tihua Street, the original market spot
for easily transported dried foods, imported (legally
since the 19th century) from Mainland China, Liu
Kai draws upon this traditional, humanistic atmosphere
in his work. Today, the neighborhood businesses,
complemented by trade in Chinese medicine and
textiles, are still going strong. Without inching
even slightly towards conservatism, Liu Kai uses
icons of traditional culture to blast tradition,
or at least make his audience question which kind
they are following one.
 Although
he has worked for the National Culture and Arts
Foundation, and Aesthetic Taiwan Culture International,
Liu Kai has clients who are predominately alternative
performing artists at the forefront of change:
Cloud Gate Dance Theater, Crystal Records, the
Performance workshop Theater Taiwan (PWTT). Still,
he is not a heavy-handed, somber liberal. From
1986 to 1999, Liu Kai was the project designer
for a dozen PWTT plays, which were created collectively
through structured improvisational rehearsals.
One of these, "Secret Love for the Peach Blossom
Spring," dissects the social situation with such
a tender eye that the individuals on stage, even
while delineating the tension between Taiwan and
mainland China, are lighthearted enough to deliver
the message without pain. The yearning for a utopian
"peach blossom land" is tormenting for the older
generation of Taiwanese who lost the China they
knew. But the structure of the play, including
the elements that make it universal: the distant
past, the present, comedy and tragedy, expand
this yearning to a parable all of us can share.
 Liu
Kai's work does the same. He refuses to be drawn
into the gloom, celebrating, instead, the lives
of ordinary Taiwanese and encouraging them to
expand their dreams to include both contemplating
and combating the disturbing tendencies of modern
life.
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