Though the Cloud Gate(雲門)modern dance company has garnered too many international accolades to count, it continues to reserve a steady slate of
performances for the home audience in Taiwan. At 7:45pm next Wednesday,
March 6, as part of the Taipei City-sponsored Traditional Arts Festival, it
will perform one of its classics, Songs of the Wanderers.
The performance brings Songs of the Wanderers back to Taipei's National
Theater, the stage on which it premiered on Nov. 4, 1994. The piece itself
was conceived earlier that year, after Cloud Gate founder and artistic
director Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) traveled to Bodhgaya, India, the historical
site of the Buddha's enlightenment under a banyan tree. For inspiration, Lin
drew on his own reflections while in India, as well as rice, a vestige from
his childhood that enters the stage through bushels of golden grains that
are poured and sifted onto the dancers, and Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha
Lin's work takes its name from the Chinese translation of the book's title
(流浪者之歌). Through more than 120 performances, Songs has received glowing
reviews from the New York Times among other publications, and toured many of
the leading dance festivals in Europe and the US. It remains as one of five
pieces in Cloud Gate's repertoire.
Tickets for Songs of the Wanderers are available for between NT$300 and
NT$1,500, and are available through ERA ticket outlets. For theater and
ticketing information, see listings.
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