Arts and Culture Worldwide Project #62134

Creation & Art Empowerment for Taiwanese Elders

by Bright Side Projects

Project Report | Oct 3, 2026
Empowering Taiwanese Elders through Music & Dance

By Daisy Lin | Project Leader

Kids and our elders DJing together!

As we head past into fall 2026, we continue to bring amazing workshops for our older friends. This year have focused primarily on bringing cultural learning through dance, bringing a wonderful form of music therapy that engages both the mind and body. We also brought one of our year end programs to finish our DJ for LOVE series and had the first teaming up of youth and older friends learning and sharing together.

In the flamenco dance class we tried our hand in making some of the local cuisine which turned out beautiful and delicious with fresh tomatoes and lemons. The flowers and additional apparel the instructor brought added another fun and colorful dimension to the workshop, taking everyone on a trip to another part of the world.

Our DJ for LOVE started off last year as part of our year end workshops series and we finally were able to put in the time slot of July for the community center. Some of our youth who took the class before were also eager to have more time with hands on training at the IMDJ studio in Taipei; then they headed out to be teachers assistants for our older friends in aiding them to learn. Music not only transcends culture, language, and eras but in turn also links the present with the rich history on which it has evolved. We hope that through collaborating with DJs, we can learn more about its history and evolution through time and different uses of technology.

With limited funding, we are only able to bring one workshop every two months to our seniors. We really strive to be able to a department that caters to bringing these creative workshops to more places. Support us and check back - we will update you on our LOCKING dance workshop later this year!

Flamenco dance!

Tying culture with our classes

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Jun 8, 2026
Creative Edu Empowerment for Taiwanese Elders

By Daisy Lin | Project Leader

2026 heralds in our fourth year at the Nangang Community Center with elders in Taiwan and we continue to love and flourish with friendships here, bringing in some new workshops and also an updated version of an older one (Mini Me).

We started off with teacher and dancer Sibyl Lin who brought all the colors and music of Tahiti to the doorsteps of the community center. Going through the history and evolution of Tahiti landscapes in culture and dance, our older friends were able to move their hands and bodies to the music with the guidance of Sibyl. With some colorful dresses and sunglasses, it really brought another element of whisking all of us to the South Pacific islands of French Polynesia. Fresh coconut was prepped earlier that day, providing fresh coconut water to sample with the amazing and stunning fruit cornucopia.

Recently we went back to our 2024 BUILD A HOME series as we updated in repainting a few of their walls so we could hang up new "mini me" artworks in our late May workshop. The colorful paintings depicting themselves encouraged self introspection and communication of their favorite things to each other as they chatted and painted. It was a wonderful paint session and we look forward to hanging up the new portraits on the wall of the community center.

For the remainder of this year we are incorporating a series of Body and Movement workshops, incorporating physical activities that benefit both physical and mental health, as well as learning about new cultures. This will include flamenco dancing, popping and locking, and also a DJ scratch workshop with professional DJs and children. Please support our older friends in Bright Side Projects creative education curriculum!

Regarding BODY AND MOVEMENT
“Body and Movement” classes are centered on wellness including various sports and activities. Activities often encourage understanding of self, team work, and helps aid in confidence building and self-esteem. Understanding our place in the world through knowing ourselves in the physical form, practicing dexterity and continuing to hone our hand and eye coordination.

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Feb 8, 2026
Creative Edu Empowerment for Taiwanese Elders

By Daisy Lin | Project Leader

Terrains of Taiwan

We are solidifying our third year at the Nangang Community Center with elders in Taiwan and brought two amazing artists both inspired by the beauty of nature.

Teacher JiaChi, as a jewelery artist, took acrylic painting to a new level with hand dexerity in landscape terrain from a bird's eye point of view of the nature of Taiwan, taping and painting out flowers, fields and trees. Step by step and understanding how various angles change the "shape" of objects change (trees looking triangular face on and circular from above), we were able to have our older friends bring a different depth and beauty to the paintings.

Teacher Wendy from Race for the Beach is someone we have collaborated with for the past three years in our annual surf camp and beach clean up with kids. We would have loved to have taken our older friends to the beach to participate in the sport but due to mobility issues, we decided to first introduce them to "trash" by upcycling items that can be found at the beach; plastic bottles. This time, we took many hours to prep approximately 80 bottles from the trash to prepare fo this workshop and they participated in splitting, cutting, taping, marking, nailing, and lightly holding plastic pieces over a small candle to curl the petals of their flower. It definitely took hard work with being able to view the small details with the materials being transparent, but the final product of a gorgeous flower was something they were all proud of. We love that there is something so beautiful that can be created from discarded items and letting them learn and contribute to SDGs and challenging us and themselves.

Bright Side Projects hope that we can have more support in 2026 to bring different types of workshops to our older friends; we hope to share our plans with you soon!

Sustainable flower workshop

Working with different techniques for the creation

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