Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan Artists
About Cloud Gate:The virtuosity of Cloud Gate dancers has made critics ask: “When has one ever seen a company with such magical and beautiful bodies?” and confess that they “possess a control and articulation that verge on the superhuman. These are performers who can make stillness every bit as eloquent as animation. In fact, they have the power to change your metabolism.”
Cloud Gate is the name of the oldest known dance in China. In 1973, choreographer Lin Hwai-min adopted this classical name for the first contemporary dance company in any Chinese speaking community.
Its 24 dancers receive trainings of meditation, Qi Gong, and ancient form of breathing exercise, internal martial arts, modern dance, ballet and calligraphy. Through Lin Hwai-min’s choreographies the company transforms ancient aesthetics into thrilling modern celebration of motion.
Cloud Gate has toured extensively with frequent engagements at the Next Wave Festival in New York, the Sadler’s Wells Theatre and Barbican Centre in London, the Moscow Chekhov International Theatre Festival, and the Internationales Tanzfest NRW directed by Pina Bausch.
International critics have acclaimed Cloud Gate as the following:
“Asia’s leading contemporary dance theatre” The Times, London
“One of the finest dance companies in the world” The Globe and Mail, Toronto
In 2003, Cloud Gate opened the Melbourne International Arts Festival with Cursive II, winning both the Age Critics’ Award and the Patron’ Award; while Moon Water was named the best dance of the year by the New York Times. In 2006, Cursive: A Trilogy was chosen as the best dance choreography of the year as a result of critics’ poll by Ballet-Tanz and Theater Heute.
At home, Cloud Gate also enjoys high acclaim and popularity. In addition to the regular seasons in theatres, the company stages annual free outdoor performances in various cities in Taiwan, drawing audiences of up to 60,000 per performance.
To perform for grass-roots communities, and to foster young choreographers in Taiwan, cloud Gate 2 was founded in 1999. In 1998, Cloud Gate Dance School was founded to bring the joy of dance to students, aged 4 to 84.
In 2003, in recognition of Cloud Gate’s contribution to the cultural life of Taipei, the Taipei City Government named Fu-Hsing North Road Lane 231, home of Cloud Gates’s office, as “Cloud Gate Lane.” In 2010, a new asteroid, discovered by National central University, Taiwan, was named after Cloud Gate.
Most of Cloud Gate’s productions have been made into videos. Among them, Songs of the Wanderers, Moon Water, Bamboo Dream, and Cursive II were filmed in Europe.
About Lin Hwai-min:
Honouring Lin Hwai-min with a Lifetime Achievement Award, the jury of the International Movimentos Dance Prize, Germany, calls Lin “a foremost innovator of dance” and that “Lin Hwai-min ranks amongst artists of the century such as William Forsythe, George Balanchine, Birgit Cullberg…”
A writer-turned choreographer, Lin has published books of fiction and essay, and holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Writer’s Workshop, University of Iowa. Lin Hwai-min studied dance in Taiwan and New York. In 1973, he founded Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, and Cloud Gate 2 in 1999.
Heralded as “the most important choreographer in Asia,” Lin often draws his inspiration from traditional Asian culture and aesthetics to create original works with contemporary resonance, which have made Dance Europe acclaim: “No company in the world dances like Cloud Gate. It presents a distinct and mature Chinese choreographic language. The importance of this evolution in Asian dance is no less profound than the impact of Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt on European classical ballet.”
Among the honours Lin Hwai-min has received are honorary doctorates from five universities in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan National Award for Arts, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award, the award for “Best Choreographer” at the Lyon Biennial Festival and the “Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters” from the French Ministry of Culture. In 2005, he was celebrated by Time Magazine as one of the “Asia’s Heroes.”
Lin’s dance works have been re-staged in the United States and Europe. In 2006, at the invitation of Sylvie Guillem, he choreographed the solo Sally for her. Lin’s opera direction credits include Rashomon in Austria and Tosca in Taiwan.
Lin Hwai-min has been the subject of full-length television documentaries: Portraits Taiwan: Lin Hwai-min (Discovery Channel), Floating on the Ground (Opus Arte), and Lin Hwai-min –Interface Between Worlds (ARTE/ZDF).
As an educatior, Lin founded the Department of Dance at Taipei National University of the Arts in 1983 and served as its Chairman for five years. In 1993 and 1994, he was the Founding Dean of the university’s graduate dance programme. In 1999, he conducted workshops in the Kingdom of Cambodia, assisting local dancers to collate teaching materials of Khmer dance for children.
Since 2000, he has also been serving as the Artistic Director of “Novel Dance Series” for the Novel Hall dance venue in Taipei.
In 2003, Lin donated the prize money which accompanied the Executive Yuan National Cultural Award, the highest honour for artists in Taiwan, as the seed money for the Wanderers’ Fund, which aims to support aspiring local artists to travel in Asia.
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