Handstand hero Mr. Candle travels Taiwan

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      Some people are born to sing. Some are born to write. Ming Cheng Huang was born to be upside down. The 28-year-old Taiwanese circus artist and modern dancer, who appears as part of TaiwanFest on Monday (September 5), says he can’t remember when he started doing handstands—but it’s a skill that has made him a household name in his native country.

      “That is his natural talent, and he believes everyone has a right to the life they choose, and his natural talent is handstands,” explains his assistant and interpreter Kitty Huang (no relation), on the line from Toronto. “He didn’t need any training. When he does handstands, he forgets about the world. He forgets about everything else, and he is in his own world.”

      For the past two years, Huang has been travelling across Taiwan taking photographs of himself doing handstands and hand-walking in various landscapes, often in dangerous locales: on rooftops, busy street curbs, cliffs—anywhere that strikes his fancy. “When he chooses a site, he does not think of danger,” explains the interpreter. “He thinks about what he needs to convey to the audience, and sometimes he needs to show that human beings are very, very small, and sometimes it’s just an artist’s instinct.”

      Huang’s act may seem like a series of elaborate stunts, but he insists there’s a serious and heartfelt message at its core. “I want to tell Taiwanese [people] three things,” he says, speaking in English without his interpreter for a moment. “One is how to train your talent to become your job. Follow your heart. Second is Taiwanese people, we have dreams, but we don’t know how to face the dream, or how to achieve that, because in our society, we just tell the children, ‘You must earn money. You must get a job, and no dream. Dream is not real.’ That’s our environment. The third, our land. Taiwanese love the Taiwanese land, but we don’t know how to protect the land.”

      His desire to shine light on these issues is part of the reason he has embraced the nickname Mr. Candle, the moniker by which he is more widely known in Taiwan. “I drew a logo and I showed logo to my friend, my sister, my brother, and they said, ‘Oh, this is a candle,’ but I’m drawing my handstand,” he explains. “I said, ‘Okay, it’s a candle.’ A candle can exist everywhere and we use it everywhere, and also it symbolizes that it gives people light, then it has an end, just like our life.”

      Part of his long-term goal, he says, is to expand the Taiwanese appetite for and awareness of circus arts by travelling the world and bringing what he learns back to his homeland.

      “In Taiwan, we have no space for a circus guy, you know?” he observes. “I want to create the stage for me, for the children, for my next generation. So I plan to do 15 years of travel all over the world.…Why I want to travel all over the world is because I want to learn how to train, learn how to create, learn how to educate.”

      His interpreter jumps in to expand on his thoughts: “There is no environment for acrobats to develop in Taiwan,” she notes. “He wants to write an encyclopedia in acrobatics, and he would like to create a path for people to follow his footsteps.”

      Ultimately, though, Huang’s handstands are just a means to an end, she says. “I think he wants to deliver his philosophy of life, and he wants to let people pay attention to those things, and to encourage people to live their lives, to embrace themselves. If people do not get that, if they just feel happy watching his show, he’s fine with that. But if people can get some inspiration and then start living a life of their choosing, then that’s better.”

      Ming Cheng Huang will show a short film and do acrobatics at the Telus TaiwanFest main stage at the Vancouver Art Gallery at 5 p.m. on Saturday (September 3) and Sunday (September 4).

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