Taiwanese choreographer Lin Mei-hong (林美虹) has carved out a career in Europe, where she has lived for more than three decades and has been artistic director at the Tanztheater des Staatstheaters Darmstadt since 2004. The Yilan-born 50-year-old talked with the Taipei Times on Wednesday morning about dancing, her career and her newest work, Schwanengesang, which will be performed at the National Theater next weekend.
Taipei Times: When did you start studying dance?
Lin Mei-hong: I was 9 or 10, but I played around earlier. By the first or second year, very young, I knew I loved it. I was so happy every time I could go to dance class. I always prepared my things early, getting everything ready to go to class. I left my home and joined the Langyang group [Lanyang Dance Troupe (蘭陽芭蕾舞團)] very early on. We lived together and traveled together.
TT: When did you know you wanted to choreograph?
LM: Also very early on. After five years of dancing I knew I wanted to choreograph. Whenever the teacher would say “imagine you are your favorite animal” or “listen to this music and create something,” I was very happy.
TT: Why did you choose do go to Italy to study dance? (She studied at the Accademia Nazionale di Danza in Rome.)
LM: Because of the scholarship. If I could choose again now, maybe I would choose elsewhere. So many Taiwanese go to Germany or Britain. Lanyang’s founder is Italian [Father Gian Carlo Michelini], so maybe that influenced me. Going to Italy at 16 — it was not my first time to go there, but before it had always been with the group — but to go there to live, to live with a family, they were very important years for me. The Italians were so different, so passionate; there is always so much drama. They are always talking with their hands.
TT: After six years, why did you decide to move from Italy to Germany?
LM: When I finished my studies — a completely classic European ballet education — I was planning to come home, but fortunately I saw Pina Bausch’s company [Tanztheater Wupperatal] in Rome. It was a shock to my soul — something so shocked me, touched me — I called my mom to say “I have to stay here [Europe] for a while.”
It was a big culture shock going to Germany — German people, what a shock, so different from the Italians. I went to study German over the summer before starting school, I didn’t go home to Taiwan. The first half-year was so tough. Essen was so ugly after Rome; it’s cold, industrial, gray.
We started everything all over again from the beginning — an eight-count plie down, eight-count plie up. It didn’t matter that you had studied ballet for years, they wanted you to start all over and do it their way. But it was a good mentality, it taught you a new attitude, which is the most important thing.
After one year I started to feel at home because it was like going back to Chinese dance, which is very low [the center of gravity], while ballet is very high. The training made you think about simplicity, to think very clear, without a lot of decoration. Again, it was about going back to my roots, going low, technique-wise.
TT: When did you decide to stay in Germany, to work with Pina Bausch? (Lin graduated in 1989 from the Aachen Folkwang College of Arts Kinetographie Laban Research Institute.)
LM: Not right away. The decision to stay on came later. The [school’s] way of thinking was important for me, while the technique [Bausch’s] was not so different for me. When I finished school, the Folkwangschule, it was a totally different world. It’s not the real world and that is why its graduates can’t find jobs anywhere else. (Laughs.)
You have this feeling of innocence, no preconceptions, feeling totally open to the world, and it’s important to keep that feeling.
TT: What has kept you in Europe?
LM: I wanted to come home, but my husband is German. Destiny takes you to where you have to be. We are both working as artists in the German theater system.
The German system is great, having that kind of support. You are always able to learn, to try, to fail. I have to produce at least two new full evening productions every season ... At the start I had to do three. That is very hard, so a lot of people [choreographers or artistic directors] can’t hold on for more than five years.
We divide the things by department, public relations, accounts, choreography, artistic director. I have people working with me, so I just have to make decisions. As artistic director I can choose the piece I want, the dancers I want.
It can be hard to find a balance between being artistic director and choreographer. The German system is very good in this way, although it took me a while to organize myself in doing these two jobs. When I’m in the studio rehearsing I think only as a choreographer, I don’t ask about budgets or schedules. When I leave the studio and go to the office, then I ask questions about budget, scheduling. When you mix it, it can be hard, but if there’s a conflict then I’m the choreographer. I always favor the artistic.
TT: Tell me about Swan Song (Schwanengesang), your latest piece.
LM: It premiered in November and now it is in repertoire, so our last performance of it was on Feb. 22.
I choose different themes for every piece. For this part I knew the opera, I was very curious and found it interesting so I read the novel, I decided it has inspirational possibilities. But I am not telling this story. I chose six different scenes, the motifs in the story while I was reading, they were what touched me, what I thought.
TT: Looking at a video clip, the piece appears to mix very dramatic scenes with very humorous ones. The nuns with the strange wimples, for example. Is this mix normal for you — darkness with humor?
LM: I don’t know if this is very typical, it’s unconscious. The working title was “Demon Seed” because these kinds of demons are inside everyone. I show something very dark with a contrasting scene, it’s like life, it’s ironic. If people are very happy I want to know what’s behind them, what’s hiding, what’s between the lines. I’m always reading between the lines.
TT: Would you say your choreographic style is very “German,” like Bausch’s?
LM: I come from a very different cultural background. I’m from Taiwan. I was in Italy at the most important age, as a teenager, and then I went to Germany at the right age [young adult]. But when I left school, I left that style.
Pina Bausch is like a light but far away. I don’t try to follow that light. I think I am going against German tradition, even after 20 years in Germany. Critics say I am pushing a renaissance in dance theater in Germany because I have no fear of combining influences, because I am willing to challenge tradition.
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