Riotous spring for Cloud Gate 2

Spring Riot is the name Cloud Gate Dancer Theatre (雲門舞集) founder Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) chose for his second company's spring tour this year. It's an aptly chosen title: The four-piece show is a riot of talent, from the choreographers to the dancers to the costume design.

But the title was chosen before anyone could have had an inkling of what a calamitous riot this spring would turn out to be for Lin and his two companies because of the devastating fire that destroyed their Bali Township (八里) home on Feb. 11, forcing them into makeshift accommodations and leaving them scrambling to recreate the costumes, props and other materials needed for their tours.

The companies have rallied admirably and Cloud Gate 2 is ready for its opening night on March 26 in Taipei.

Spring Riot's four works are each unique in their own right. Put together they make for a memorable program that showcases Cloud Gate 2's past, present and future.

The program begins with Cocoon (羽化), a piece by the late Lo Man-fei (羅曼菲), who founded the troupe in 1999 to foster young choreographers and dancers. She choreographed the piece in 1987 for the dance department at the National Institute of the Arts (now the Taipei National University of the Arts, TNUA) and then revived it for Cloud Gate Dance Theatre in 1994. Created when Lo was 32, the work explores the often-complicated interactions between men and women and is set to the music of Philip Glass.

In a telephone interview earlier this month, Lin said he had chosen to revive Cocoon for CG2 because it was a reminder of Lo's talent and an excellent example of minimalism. A good piece that holds its own, he said.

"It's very simple, very lyrical, very structured, with simple props. Very pure, something we don't see among young choreographers today. It was an early work [of Lo's] in the 1980s, [when there was] the last trace of simplicity in Taiwan society before all the LV [craze for designer labels] came in and politics," Lin said.

The second piece, Change (變), is by one of the young choreographers that Lo mentored, former Cloud Gate dancer Cheng Tsung-lung (鄭宗龍), who has gained attention both at home and abroad in recent years. Lin included Cheng in the Novel Hall Dance series last May, where he performed Tete-beche, the duet that won him the bronze medal at the First International Choreography Competition in Ludwigshafen, Germany, in 2006.

CG2 performed Cheng's light-hearted A Dignified Joke in their spring 2006 shows. But Change is a change of pace from Cheng's previous works in terms of mood, tempo and technical challenge. It's set to Terry Riley's Keyboard Study 2, a score that with its harmonic repetitions can verge toward the monotonous, but serves to focus attention on the dancers' movements, which is what Cheng wanted.

"I've been feeling I'm going to change - not just my choreography, in my head, but I don't know when or in what direction, so at this moment I am just focused on the body - not emotion, not more story - just the body," he said after the company's press rehearsal on Tuesday. "The music creates an ambiance, like water running in the background; it creates a stage, an area, for the dancers."

But he laughingly admitted the music did get to him.

"Six months of this music in my life … it drove me crazy. So next time I will need melody, something classical," he said.