Open a new gate

Back only 10 days from the Caracas International Theater Festival in Venezuela and the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan dancers were rehearsing in their Taipei County studio last week, preparing their latest piece Bamboo Dream (竹夢).

With Bamboo Dream as its centerpiece, the troupe will begin a national tour tomorrow that will include shows in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung.

The theme of dreams is an apt one for Cloud Gate, which has built its international reputation on the abstract and poetic choreography created by its founder and leader Lin Hwai-min (林懷民).

In Bamboo Dream, a soft musicality and a dream-like atmosphere are evoked through a woman in a white classic gown playing a Chinese flute and dancers in similar loose white gowns with long sleeves flitting through a bamboo grove.

It's an enchanting piece that can be compared with the troupe's wildly popular Moon Water. Wu Yi-fang (吳義芳), principal dancer and rehearsal director of the troupe and a member of Cloud Gate for 15 years, said the seven-act 75-minute choreography has intricate layers of complexity that underpin its abstract, plotless and characterless format.

At points in this piece, for example, duos or trios are highlighted to portray the sorrow and joy of relationships.

"Use your imagination to stretch space and time. As dancers change their positions in space at different times, their relationship changes," says Wu, who is best known for his role as the god of the clouds in another piece by the troupe titled Nine Songs (九歌).

"The dancers are communicating with each other with their body movements, releasing various emotions," Wu said, adding that the exploration of the subtlety of human relationships in Bamboo Dream has been particularly challenging.

In a section of Bamboo Dream titled Spring Wind, Wu performs in a trio with two women, interacting at first with one woman and then seeming to waver toward a second woman who appears. "Our relationship is ambiguous. Sometimes we are dancing together, and then running away from each other ... kind of like relationships in real life," Wu said.

"It a timeless topic for art and literature. The white-gowned girl, for example, could be an intruder in the relationship, or the past id of the woman in the duo, or, the ex-lover of the man."

In Lin's trademark style, interpretations are not imposed on the audience. "Master Lin does not dictate. He does not interpret his choreography to kill your imagination," Wu said.

"You see flute playing and a soloist moving, for example. It's fleeting and transient. It does not tell you anything. But it displays an experience, energy, and breathing, it's very spiritual even though what you see is physical dancing. It's time to feel, to respond to the choreographer's creativity, and to make your own observations."

Wu says Cloud Gate dancers pay particular attention to keeping their bodies and minds in shape for the technically-oriented parts of the troupe's dances. "You have to talk to your body, comfort it so that it will work well," adding that the proper state of mind and body is achieved through thinking of one's own energy flow, and linking ideas and emotions accurately to the flow through one's body.

As in the troupe's previous performances, the dance routines entail a large degree of athleticism. Wu, for example, blends movements to personify 10 different animals in an act titled Summer Clamor. He said the stage, during this act, resembles a zoo.