In a fictional future in 2050, a paralleling time and space where historical memories are lost, a group of workers in a sound collecting factory/laboratory discover the surviving memories of sounds in the everyday objects left behind from the 1950s.

From these objects, they have a glimpse of the historical events during the decade through the segments of memories of a tailor, who lived on the land devastated by the flame of wars: the frustration and helplessness of a Taiwanese solider, who fought for the Japanese Imperial troops in the Second World War; the terror and fright during the martial law period; the impact of the US aids; the glove puppetry, an entertainment among folks, being used as a powerful tool for political propaganda; the devastation brought by the Eight-Seven 7 自由擊《20 伍零》 Floods of 1959 in Taiwan, and so forth. In the age of suppression, Green Island Serenade was well-spreading in everybody’s mind, while Wish You Come Back Soon revealed the greatest expectation of all. In addition to making people experience the pains once again, will the re-discovery of the lost memories bring some sort of comfort? Or will it become a pair of a butterfly’s wings, which bring forth a little bit of changes by flapping?

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Freedom Beat: Fifties, focusing on the popular music in the 1950s in Taiwan, is a sequel of Sweet Revenge, which features the 1930s. But why is the 1940s skipped? That’s because during the 1940s, the Second World War and Chinese Civil War occurred one after the other, and Taiwan was severely bombarded, where disaster prevention drills aimed for airstrikes but not for earthquakes. The memories of this period had faded away. It was then followed by 38 years of suppression, the second longest period of martial law in the world, in which no freedom of thinking and expression was available, but in contrast, hidden phenomena of cultural integration and hybrid emerged in popular music. The pains of the era became the nutrition for artists, leading to the outburst of creations with intense emotions.

Would people be happier without the memories of the past and historical wounds? The year of 2050 is just around the corner. It does not seem far away and may not differ too much from the present, either. However, after going through so many major events in 2023, everything seems so uncertain all of a sudden that nobody can say for sure that he/ she knows what 2050 will look like. At such subtle timing, we decide not to look back at the 1950s from the present but from the perspective of the near future.

In addition to telling stories with music, it is our hope to focus more on the sound theater in this production. By rearranging those iconic songs at that time and reducing the use of music instruments, we use various materials, such as papers and glass jars, from the recycle bins to “present the scenes with sounds.” By means of the “semi-radio drama,” we employ the foley technique in film-making and the latest sound technology -- Spat Revolution and Spat5 package Max/MSP, a software suite for spatialization of sound signals, developed by IRCAM (Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music) – to provide audiences with the Binaural experience through headphones in some parts of the performance.

The self-made instrument representing 2050 is blanks in the creation, where we welcome different handicraft articles to fill in and thus inspire all possible variations for this work