One final 'Dream' for Lin Hwai-min

By Chris Fechstedt
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Friday, Aug 12, 2005, Page 14

Cloud Gate performs Dream of the Red Chamber. PHOTO COURTESY OF CLOUD GATE

From a table on the second floor of the studio, Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) keeps an eye on his dancers as they prepare for tomorrow, when Cloud Gate (雲門舞集) will give its last-ever Taipei performance of Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢), the now-legendary set-piece that Lin created 20 years ago.

The gracefully aging choreographer greeted me wearing nothing but a pair of white boxers, barked a few orders and scribbled some notes during the rehearsal.

"They're doing good today," he says with a proud smile. It's hard to disagree.

There are plenty of beautiful dance performances to be seen in Taipei. What makes Dream so special is that there is nothing gratuitous about its beauty. And that's not a given for a two-hour-long interpretive dance based on a Chinese epic novel relying heavily on expensive sets and elaborate costumes.

Dream, like a lot of what Cloud Gate does, walks the fine line between boringly abstract and irritatingly pretty. The result is something that is both undeniably profound and instantly cool. Even the sexuality -- and there is sexuality -- is neither juvenile nor prudish. Not a lot of groups have the chops to pull this off, but at its worst Cloud Gate makes it look easy, and there are moments when it seems inevitable.

Lin insists -- and he's right -- that you don't need to know the story to appreciate the dance. "Dance is not there to tell any story," he said. "Dance is dance."

Still, Lin choreographed Dream in the first place because he was "crazy in love" with the novel, and his face lights up as he describes the story "about youth and youth lost."

The story is bookended by a red-robed monk reminiscing about his youth. The monk, as a young man living in a beautiful garden, falls in love with "the white lady." But he is forced to marry her rival, "the red lady," which drives his lover to her death and causes the man to leave the garden and become the monk.

Lin is unabashedly nostalgic about letting such a piece go. "It's really very beautiful," he remarks, a little sadly. But he insists that the performance in Shanghai later this year is "the absolute last -- finito."

"I'm being pulled into this hectic schedule," he says, and Dream is simply too complicated to keep in the repertoire. As to what he'll be doing instead, Lin says he may choreograph "something in Europe" soon, refusing to elaborate except to giggle and say, "It's wild."

Although tomorrow's performance will take place outdoors at the National Taiwan Concert Hall Plaza, 21-1, Zhongshan S Road (中正藝文廣場, 台北市中山南路21-1號), Lin says the regular stage has been reproduced to a T, and two giant monitors will ensure that each of the expected 15,000 to 20,000 audience members will all have a view.

The show starts at 7:30pm, but Lin says that if you want a front-row seat you need to be at least three hours early. As for the venue, it should be easy to find: Go to CKS Memorial Hall Station on the red line and follow the crowd.

As for Cloud Gate's next piece, Cursive III, which will debut later this year, it is in a style entirely different from Dream, but should be very cool. Lin says he's put off completing the trilogy to give his dancers time to mature, and now they're ready for a more frenetic piece. "We're working like crazy," he says. "It's really wild."