Ruth Leon recommends…Rice – Cloud Gate Dance Theatre
Ruth Leon recommendsRice – 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.
I have seen Cloudgate several times. They are a simply fantastic group of stunning dancers with one of the most inspiring choreographers around in Lin Hwai-min. Although he is now retired, he and his successor have taken their influence from many sources and cultures, especially Asian cultures.
In 2008 the Company’s studio with all their costumes and props were destroyed in a fire. Such is the very high esteem in which it is held in Taiwan, the local community donated US$12 million to rebuild and create a theatre for the Company. Open air performances in Taiwan also draw many thousands and occasionally tens of thousands.
A very special company whose performances should not be missed.
What he said.