Ruth Leon recommends…Rice – Cloud Gate Dance Theatre

Rice – Cloud Gate Dance Theatre

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Here’s a really exciting dance production from a Taiwanese company which is now celebrating its 40th anniversary.  The Cloud Gate Dance Theatre   takes grain, field, and flower as verdant muse in this celebration of the life cycle and natural beauty of Taiwan’s essential crop.

Dramatically poised against stunning video vistas of the Chihshang growing region, 24 dancers cross-pollinate modern dance and martial arts, ballet and qigong to become wind-rippled paddies, erotic agents of springtime germination, and fire walkers returning scorched seed to soil. Wielding bamboo sticks, recast as field implement, slender stalk, and weapon, they prod the seasons and coax valley rains as Taiwanese folk songs and Bellini arias waft in the wind.  Lin Hwai-min is the choreographer and the production is directed by Chao Tang Chang. Stunning.

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