When people come to visit Taiwan, what is the performance that they must see? When you ask senior citizens which programs they love to watch most or who their favorite superstar is, definitely, the answers are Taiwanese Opera and those excellent performers of Taiwanese Opera.

Pronounced "Gua-A-He" in Taiwanese, the Taiwanese Opera is the only indigenous form of drama in Taiwan. It possessed such a unique capacity to express the spirits that it touched the hearts of people in Taiwan from the past. By continuing to change time after time, Taiwanese Opera always seeks to update itself. As a result, not only the senior citizens like Gua-A-He, but also many young people like it very much. To know this special performance of Taiwan, we have to review the history of the vicissitudes and developments of Taiwanese Opera first. Then, the features and characteristics of the performance styles will be described. Finally, the innovations and future directions for Taiwanese Opera will be discussed.

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