Taipei, Taiwan

Song of Pensive Beholding: The Taiwan Performing Arts Center (a.k.a. the National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center) dates back to 1987 as a presenter, but it's only produced new shows since 2008. The first two displayed the range toward which TPAC aspires: an opera called Mackay—The Black Bearded Bible Man, about a missionary doctor who spent his life with the Taiwanese people; and Robert Wilson's latest return to the Woolf text Orlando as a solo vehicle for a major actress. TPAC's third major production, Song of Pensive Beholding, is the brainchild of choreographer Lin Lee-chen and her Legend Lin Dance Theater, which for eight years has been working on a meditative trilogy about the connection of humans to the earth and to one another. Lin's company may not be quite as widely known as Taiwan's well-traveled Cloud Gate Dance Theater, but the first two parts of the trilogy, Mirrors of Life and Hymn to the Falling Flowers, have had high-profile engagements at major festivals and have toured to Western European countries, Mexico and the U.S. The final chapter focuses on the spirits of nature, according to Lin's poetic explanation of its themes: "The river of Life is mutable. And desires are variable and multiple. Change therefore is a basic condition we rehearse every day." Lin has influenced her country's performance scene since her 1970s tenure as a dance teacher and choreographer at Chang-An Women's School, where she earned notice for pieces choreographed for as many as 100 dancers at a time. Her current venture, firmly grounded in Taiwanese myths and rituals, marks her return to the dance-theatre world following a long hiatus to raise her children. (Dec. 18-20; (866) 2-3393-9888; event.ntch.edu.tw/2009/behold)

Durban, South Africa

Musho! International Theatre Festival: For the fifth time, the Performing Arts Network of South Africa hosts this celebration of small-cast shows, which ranged in subject matter last year from San mythology and '80s stage magic to apartheid and the Middle East. Eye-catching names have turned up on past programs: At the last Musho!—the title of which is a Zulu-language exclamation roughly equivalent to "Bravo!"—film actor Presley Chweneyagae (Tsotsi) wrote and directed the two-man play Cell no. 4, set in a Johannesburg prison; another 2009 production was developed with the mentorship of famed Athol Fugard collaborator Winston Ntshona. Planned so far for 2010 are Mary Steward's solo show about a mid-thirties reinvention of a life, Losing It, Tara Louise Nortcutt's Rumpsteak, and a new piece by poet/rapper Ewok. (Jan. 717; (27) 31-305-6889; www.mushofestival.co.za) 

London, England

London International Mime Festival: World-class circus theatre is a major draw of this festival, to be sure. But there's also a thread of ambitious storytelling in such productions as Eshet—created by Etgar Theatre for the 2002 Acco Theatre Festival in Israel—in which life-size puppets enact the Old Testament story of Tamar as a comment on the oppression of women. Another standout, coming to London for the first time in more than a decade of touring, is BlackSkyWhite of Russia's USSR Was Here, a visceral inside view of a nation's disintegration. Dimitry Aryupin explains its aim: "In a single minute this building that 250 million called home simply vanished. Perhaps it was unattractive from the outside, perhaps uncomfortable inside, for some a prison. Some were happy to see it go, others couldn't survive the change. We don't seek to examine the effect of its disappearance but only to display it, lest it be forgotten." (Jan. 13-31; (44) 20-7637-5661; www.mimefest.co.uk)

Oslo, Norway

A Dance Tribute to the Art of Football: When Norway's Jo Strømgren Kompani first premiered its homage to the world's favorite team sport in 1997, according to the company's website, it was unlike anything that had been done before (barring a not-very-successful soccer ballet in 1930s Russia). The text of "hooligan grunts"; the electrifying athleticism of the jumping, dodging, grappling dancers; the slow-motion explosions of celebration after a goal—even the poetic nudity of the locker room—must have been a revelation to those who had never before considered the artistic subtext of the World Cup. However, a flurry of soccer/dance shows in the years to follow suggests that the show was perhaps too inspiring. It was retired from the field 10 years ago, but by popular demand it rejoined the company's touring repertory in August; it ends the year with a long sojourn in the company's hometown of Oslo. (Thru 2010; (47) 22460459; www.jskompani.no)

London, England

The Stefan Golaszewski Plays: Not happening to have a sketch comedy project in the pipeline for the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe, comedian Stefan Golaszewski decided to try his hand at writing a play instead. He called it Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About a Girl He Once Loved and in it he does just that—sort of. The 28-year-old actor plays an 18-year-old bearing marked resemblances to his own teen self—but "no true story is as interesting as a made-up one," he observes. "It's liberally embellished." Why, then, use his own name? "If you write a character, it's basically you, anyway. There's no point in pretending it isn't." The play was an unexpected Fringe hit (he's since been commissioned to adapt it into a feature-length multicharacter film) and prompted a 2009 follow-up, Stefan Golaszewski Is a Widower. For this second play, Golaszewski pioneers the genre of futuristic autobiography—playing a 76-year-old version of his fictionalized teen self, a retired TV actor who wasted decades on a mediocre cop show ("a nightmare scenario of how my life might turn out"), now performing a one-man show about his dead wife. Audiences at London's Bush Theatre will be the first to see both Stefan plays in a single evening, but shouldn't hold out hope for a trilogy: "I think I'm going to stop the arrogance of putting my name in the title!" Golaszewski says, then adds modestly, "but I'm writing another one-man play called Messiah—about Jesus, in an olive grove, having a bit of a crisis." (Dec. 2-Jan. 10; (44) 20-8743-3584; www.bushtheatre.co.uk)