Looking at Lo Man-fei
Only six months after release from hospital, the 47-year-old Lo was already hard at work rehearsing Reed Field
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
This in addition to teaching at the National Taipei Institute of the Arts and her job as artistic director of Cloud Gate 2, the youth wing of Taiwan's best-known dance troupe, Cloud Gate Dance Theater.
It has been two years since Lo performed and it has been a long wait for many of her supporters. Lo has been no less eager to get back to the stage. Her commitment and discipline may be rooted in her training under choreographer Lin Huai-min (
"It comes naturally with experience, but in large part it comes from the realization that in order to achieve something, you have to give up something else," Lo added.
Lo wasn't always so disciplined and often stayed up late and then skipped practice, both serious crimes for a dancer. She often had trouble over this with Lin, who saw her talent and encouraged her to pursue a career in choreography. Lin remains her mentor to this day.
"Lin taught us to be conscientious and responsible for ourselves. To rein in your energy and control it to the best effect by breath control. It's especially hard for young dancers. ... I used to think I had the skill and the strength. I would make the movement, only to hurt myself. The reining in and letting out of energy is the essence of dance," Lo said, clenching her fist and opening it again to demonstrate her words.
As a first-generation member of Cloud Gate, Lo has danced for more than 30 years. In 2000, she won the National Cultural and Arts Foundation Award, along with writer Yang Mu (
Despite having learned ballet and folk dance as a child, the idea of making dance her career did not occur to Lo until college. With the encouragement of dancer schoolmates, she decided to pick up dancing again, studying modern dance under Liu Hsuei-feng
After college, Lo went for further training at the Martha Graham Dance School and Alvin Ailey School of American Dance in the US. No sooner had Lo returned to Taiwan than Lin Huai-min recruited her into Cloud Gate. This was in 1979.
Dance fans may recall Lo's solo performance in Requiem
Believing that there's no age limit for dancers, Lo set up the Crossover Dance Company
"We are still passionate about dance and they [troupe members] are very professional," Lo said. "We `catch' the creativity and passion from each other."
Being in the dance group with the oldest professional dancers in Taiwan -- a country where dancers often find it difficult to work in their 30s -- Lo felt more than lucky. Seeing the performance by Nederlands Dans Theater -- whose members are senior to Lo by more than a decade -- in Taipei two weeks ago, was a great encouragement for her.
"Seeing these dancers on stage, I knew that we were not alone. ? If you're an experienced dancer, you don't create dramatic tension with hectic movements. Nothing more than your presence on stage conveys your message," Lo said. "That's the direction we're going."
Lo's time away from the theater also enhanced her skills as a dancer. Apart from foreign languages and literature, in which she majored, she also enjoys classical music and Chinese poetry. Works by the Taiwanese poet Yang Mu and Japanese novelist Ryunosuke Akutagawa have even inspired some of her dance works.
"Lin always emphasized the balance between movement and substance. To reach out to various fields of art to enrich your work is necessary for a good choreographer," Lo said.
Reed Field is titled after a poem by Yang Mu, although it is unrelated content-wise. "The dance is about birth, old age, illness and death, which everyone has to go through," Lo explained.
The work describes three episodes in which couples fall in love, break up and are parted by death. In the end, the characters, dead or living, have learned to face reality and let go of each other and the memory of their young and happy days as lovers.
The importance of letting go and focusing on the present was made clearer to her during her illness.
"Whether in relationships or in life, one has to learn to let go. Clinging to sweet memories and hating the present doesn't help things," Lo said.
"I'm quite glad to say that I'm content with what I have now. Even if I die tomorrow, I have no regrets."
What: Reed Field by Lo Man-fei and After the Party by British choreographer Charlotte Vincent
Who: Crossover Dance Company
When and Where: Nov. 7 to Nov. 9 at Taipei's Novel Hall. All performances start at 7:30pm
Tickets range from NT$300 to NT$1,500 and are available at Acer ticketing outlets or by calling the group at (02) 2773-0223
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