History of FACP
During the midsummer of the year 1979, Dr. Lucrecia R. Kasilag, the then chairman of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex and President of New Aspect Promotion Corporation, Mr. Hsu Po-Yun, had an in depth discussion about the cultural interactions on performing and visual arts amongst regions in Asia, and realized that many of the communications were limited with rare alliances or networks. In particular to the cross-continental activities between the east and west, the exchange at that time was very low; therefore, the effects of cultural events were minimal, costly, and inefficient. The flow of communications between each Asian region was of great deficit when compared to the interactions between Europe or America, and needless to say, the promotion of Asian cultures to the west was very scarce. Hence, Dr. Kasilag and Mr. Hsu initiated for the organization of “Federation for Asian Cultural Promotion”, and sat out to propose their mission to important people in Asia in the cultural promotion industry, and they hoped that a kinship between these members could be formed. Mr. Hsu was in charged of connecting the areas of North Eastern Asia, and Dr. Kasilag was in charged of the South Eastern regions. Through out two years’ span, they had visited Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and also cultural sectors of the United Nations. On August 11th of 1981 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex, Federation for Asian Cultural Promotion was officially formed. Its founding representatives included Dr. Kasilag of Manila, Mr. Hsu Po-Yun of Taipei, Mr. Tadashi Yokoyama of Nippon Cultural Center, Mr. Seong-Tae Kim of Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and also representative from UNESCO, Mr. Apratty. In the meeting, they came up with the following six prominent decisions:
1. Came to agreement that the organization will be named Federation for Asian Cultural Promotion (FACP). FACP shall be a non-political and non-profitable international cultural organization.
2. The Constitution was drafted by Dr. Kasilag and Mr. Hsu (the content was passed during the 2nd FACP in Taipei), and the final version was set after a editing and drafting process that took three years to complete.
3. Due to the special and complicated situations for the political and economical aspects for different regions and nations in Asia, it was a resolution that the Federation will be culturally based, and each region will be represented by its capital city; in order to avoid controversies due to political associations. Dr. Kasilag was nominated as the first chairman, Mr. Hsu as the secretary general, Mr. Kim as the international governors, Mr. Yokoyama as the treasurer, and President Marcos was invited to be the Honorary Chair. Each position was in office for three years. (Dr. Kasilag was elected again to be the chairman for the second term, and Dr. Jeanne Tchong Koei Li of Taipei was elected for the 3rd, 4th and 5th terms. Mr. Kang Suk-Heung of Seoul was elected for the 6th term, and Mr. Baltazar N. Endriga for the 7th term, Mr. Yoshiro Kambara of Tokyo for the 8th term, and Mr. Zhang Yu of Beijing for the 9th term. For the past 28th years, Mr. Hsu Po-Yun, Mr. John Duffs of Hong Kong, and Mr. Tadashi Yokoyama were appointed as the secretary general respectively.)
4. Assertively encourage important guests of honors and observers from Europe, America, Africa, Australia, etc… to participate.
5. Fortify the interaction between regions in Asia.
6. Agreed that the second annual conference will be held in Taipei, the 3rd in Tokyo, and the 4th in Seoul.
In the following years, its members increased exponentially with members from Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Macau, and Jakarta. In the year 1983, Beijing also appointed two observing guests to take part in the 3rd annual conference in Tokyo, and in the year 1990 at the 9th annual FACP conference, Melbourne representative was welcomed into the organization to become a member of FACP. (Melbourne applied to become member in 1985, and after 5 years of vigorous discussion, the region’s membership was finally approved.)
In the 90’s, a mid-term governor meeting would be held annually taking place in a different city each time, and some of the hosting cities were Bali Island, Lisbon of Portugal , Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Gyeongju, and etc…After the advancement in technology, the meeting was replaced by fax, and e-mail correspondences, and discussions were conducted via these modes of communications and brought forth to the Federation.
In the year 2001, regions of China with Beijing being the regional representative officially became FACP member. Following this, FACP began to include many subjects for discussion on Chinese cultural events, resources, information, and developments. Additionally, FACP also expanded its connections to the further eastern regions, and an example of this could be seen from the last annual conference in Urumqi, which is located at the eastern part of China and famous for its silk road. The representatives of FACP hoped that through this congregation at this location, a modern cultural silk road could be embarked.
The 25th FACP is being held at Taiwan’s southern harbor city, Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is a city with immense potentials, and similar to Osaka of Japan, it’s also building its first multi-complex cultural park, Wei-wu-ying Center for the Performing Arts. The venue will consist of a grand theater with 2500 capacity, and a 2000 capacity concert hall, 1000 capacity play house, and a 400 capacity experimental theater. It will also have an outdoor venue that can hold up to 10000 people and is located in the 70 hectare art park. The venue is surrounded by school, commercial condominiums and leisure districts. Furthermore, Kaohsiung city is also building a 10000 capacity popular music center, and will be hosting the World Games in the year 2009. In the past nearly 30 years of FACP’s history, our federation strives to be one of the most important international performing arts and cultural promoting conference and one of the vital cultural organizations globally with emphasis on connecting the east and the west. We hope that each participating members and observers can benefit from FACP with increase in their cultural productions annually and enrich the art life in Asia.
亞洲文化推展聯盟歷史
1979年仲夏之夜，菲律賓文化中心(Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex)主席卡西拉葛(Lucrecia R. Kasilag)博士與台北的新象活動推展中心(New Aspect Promotion Corporation)總監許博允(Hsu Po-Yun)先生，在馬尼拉慎重地談起20世紀以來，在亞洲地區的國際間交流文化活動不論是表演藝術或視覺藝術，大多是採單一作業的方式，極少聯合陣線，更遑論網狀系統鏈作業，尤其是東、西方跨洲際的行事活動，使得成效不大且費時、費事又費財，甚至亞洲各地區各國之間的交流，乃至鄰國的往來，反而比與歐美之間的交流差距懸殊，更甭提將東方藝術推廣至西方了。於是兩人便共同發起籌組「亞洲文化推展聯盟」，分頭遊說亞洲各地區承擔推動文化活動的主要負責人，喚起協力增進彼此間的聯繫之心，許博允負責連絡東北亞地區，卡西拉葛負責東南亞地區，當時以兩年的時間拜會日、韓、港、澳、新、馬、印尼及聯合國文教組織等，終於促成於1981年8月11日在馬尼拉菲律賓文化中心正式成立了「亞洲文化推展聯盟」(Federation for Asian Cultural Promotion)，當時首次出席的與會代表除了馬尼拉的卡西拉葛博士、台北的許博允先生，並有財團法人日本文化財團(Nippon Cultural Center)的橫山正先生，漢城交響樂團(Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra)創史人的金聖泰(Seong-Tae Kim)先生，此外尚有聯合國文教組織(UNESCO)的代表阿普拉提先生，會中作了六項重要決定：
1. 決定組織名稱為亞洲文化推展聯盟(FACP)。FACP定向為非政治、非盈利的國際永久文化組織。
2. 「組織憲章」由卡西拉葛與許博允共同起草（並於第二屆在台北的FACP大會通過，爾後再以三年的時間修正定案而成現今版本）。
3. 有鑒於亞洲各地區、各國間的政治、經濟形勢的特殊性，本組織期盼全亞洲奉獻文化的人士均能參與為成員，因此決定以「文化機體」為主軸，而各地區原則上以首都之名稱為各地區「機體」之命名，以避免不同政治機體之爭議，並推選卡西拉葛為首任主席、許博允為秘書長、金聖泰為國際委員、橫山正為財務委員，並請馬可仕總統夫人為榮譽主席，每一任期三年。（第二任由卡西拉葛續任，此後第三、四、五任則由台北的李鍾桂博士(Jeanne Tchong Koei Li)連任，第六任漢城的姜錫興(Kang Suk-Heung)先生擔任，第七任則為馬尼拉的安德里加(Baltazar N. Endriga)先生，第八任東京的神原詩朗(Yoshiro Kambara)先生，第九任由北京的張宇(Zhang Yu)擔任，而28年來的秘書長則由許博允、香港的杜尊輝先生(John Duffs)先生、及東京橫山正先生接力擔任至今，這自然成為歷史上的創舉。）
4. 積極邀請西方歐美、非、澳文化界重要人士與會為貴賓觀察代表。
5. 強化亞洲間區域的交流。
6. 確定第二屆在台北，第三屆在東京，第四屆在漢城擴大舉行。
隨後幾年會員地區並快速增加了香港、新加坡、吉隆坡、澳門、雅加達；北京亦於1983年也派了兩位代表全程以貴賓觀察員身份參加了在東京池袋舉行的第三屆會議，到了1990年在澳門舉行第九屆FACP大會上才正式通過同意澳洲以墨爾本為地區代表，該地區參加為正式會員（這是該地區從1985年提出申請，經過五年激烈地辯論後，方才決議之）。
從1990年代之後，FACP每年在歷屆大會之間均有“期中執行委員會議”均擇異地舉行，曾分別在印尼的巴里島、葡萄牙的里斯本、台北、吉隆坡、東京、韓國的慶州…等舉行過，為因應科技的方便，改以傳真、E-mail等通訊討論統合參考意見，以提交大會討論之。
中國大陸地區在2001年以北京為代表地區名稱正式成為會員。此後大會議題，大量融入討論中國有關之文化活動、資源、資訊、設施、交流與發展等為議題；FACP更擴大活化遠東地區之間的聯繫，乃至上屆大會且深入中國西部在絲路上的首會“烏魯木齊”召開，有些與會代表希望藉由FACP掀起現代文化絲路。
第25屆FACP大會轉至台灣南部濱海的高雄市舉行，高雄是一蓄勢待發的港都，有如日本的大阪，尤其是即將建設一大型的綜合式的文化園區命名為「衛武營高雄國家文化中心」，將有2,500人座的大劇院、2,000人座的音樂廳、1,000人座的中劇場、400人座的實驗劇場，及可供萬人的戶外表演場地，座落在70公頃的藝術公園裡，四周並圍繞著學校及商業、休閒融匯的大地區。此外該城市亦將啟蓋萬人座的流行音樂中心，正在積極籌備2009年舉辦全球“世運會”。
以這將近30年來的FACP歷史，至今本聯盟已儼然成為亞洲最重要的表演藝術決策推展者國際會議，當然也成為世界上主要文化藝術國際組織之ㄧ，尤其實質扮演東西方之間的文化橋樑是不容遑讓，其參與的關係成員總和在每年的文化產值，應當超過美金100億元，相信藉由FACP會員的共同努力，亞洲地區人民的藝術生活可獲得大大的提升。
