Indigenous Popular Music in Majia
Indigenous Popular Music: From Mountain Ballads to Pop Hits is at Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Park in Majia, Pingtung, through September 30.
By Look Three Small editors · Majia, Pingtung
Indigenous Popular Music in Pingtung
2026
The Pingtung installation of Indigenous Popular Music, with visitors moving between singer histories, records, photographs and hanging patterned lights. Image: TITV News.
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Recordings let voices travel, helped musicians earn money and built audiences far from where the songs began.
Indigenous Popular Music: From Mountain Ballads to Pop Hits follows songs as they move through collection, records and cassettes, political movements, songwriting in Indigenous languages and the popular stage. The exhibition is at Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Park in Majia, Pingtung, through September 30.
Its six sections begin with postwar collection and research, then follow the pressure placed on Indigenous languages and cultural memory. Vinyl records and cassettes open another history: singers were marketed under the flattening category of “mountain singers,” but recordings also let voices travel, helped musicians earn money and built audiences far from where the songs began.
The exhibition continues through the Return Our Land movement and protests against nuclear waste on Orchid Island, then into Indigenous-language songwriting and contemporary popular music. The Pingtung presentation adds Treasured Indigenous Sounds and Indigenous Sounds 185, connecting the park's own recordings with Bunun, Paiwan, Rukai and Pingpu cultural life along County Road 185.
SANGPUY says the exhibition works like a world map for understanding how Indigenous music spread, how it changed and how Taiwan's music developed. Sauljaljui places that history alongside Indigenous cultural revitalization elsewhere in the world and the long musical history leading into the A-Mei era. Their comments come from TITV's report on the current Pingtung opening.
On September 11 and 12, the linked Pasenay programme brings wedding-song practice into two workshops and a public performance. The Paiwan and Rukai sessions work with call-and-response, family honor, blessing, gift processions and circle dance. The following afternoon, banquet tables enter the Welcome District plaza for a public wedding cultural performance with audience participation.
Pasenay programme
September 11, 09:00–12:00 — Paiwan wedding-song workshop, Cultural Objects Exhibition Hall small classroom
September 11, 14:00–17:00 — Rukai wedding-song workshop, Cultural Objects Exhibition Hall small classroom
September 12, 14:30–16:30 — public wedding cultural performance, Welcome District octagonal plaza
Indigenous Popular Music: From Mountain Ballads to Pop Hits, key visual
2026
Key visual for Indigenous Popular Music: From Mountain Ballads to Pop Hits. Image: Indigenous Peoples Cultural Development Center.
Editorial useView source ↗
pasenay programme poster
Ma Yu-fang · 2026
Poster for the pasenay programme; painting supplied by Ma Yu-fang. Image: Indigenous Peoples Cultural Development Center.
Editorial useView source ↗
Get there
Public transport
From Zuoying HSR/Xinzuoying, take Kaohsiung Bus 511 to Shuimen Transfer Station. On weekends and national holidays, transfer to 603B for the park; Tuesday–Friday, reserve the park's electric shuttle. The September 11 afternoon workshop ends at 17:00, after the regular last shuttle, so arrange the return in advance.
Sources
- Indigenous Peoples Cultural Development Center: Indigenous Popular Music ↗ — Dates, venue, organizer, and related programmes
- TITV News: Indigenous Popular Music in Pingtung ↗ — The current Pingtung installation, exhibition structure, and featured musicians
- Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Park: tickets and hours ↗ — Hours, closed day, admission, parking fees, and the cash-only rule