“Come see a beautiful ballet” is not something one expects to hear from Lin Hwai-min (林懷民), especially if he is talking about one of his own creations.
Lin’s ground-centric vocabulary that he has honed for decades as founder and artistic director of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集) would appear to be the antithesis of the lift-filled, up in the air creations of the classical ballet world.
However, Lin said his 2002 creation, Smoke (烟), which opens the National Theater Concert Hall’s Dancing in Autumn series tomorrow night, is the only European-flavored piece he has ever done.
Courtesy of Liu Chen-hsiang
“It’s so different from Cursive (行草) and Moon Water (水月), even a ballet company can do it,” he said in a telephone interview last week.
Which is the reason why Cloud Gate has not performed Smoke in years — the Zurich Ballet added it to its repertoire and kept performing the piece, so Lin saw no need for his troupe to perform it on their overseas tours.
He said he decided to bring it back because it would be a good challenge for his younger dancers, but he is not planning on keeping it in Cloud Gate’s repertoire, so the shows this weekend and next might be the only chance for Taipei audiences to see the work.
Courtesy of Chen You-wei
Smoke is a very internationally inspired work, but the end result differs from what Lin originally envisioned.
At the time, he had been making a lot of trips to India and he was struck by the images of smoke drifting above the cremation ghats along the Ganges River. He said he wanted to do something different, so he took set designer Austin Wang (王孟超) and lighting designer Chang Tsan-tao (張贊桃) with him on trip to India over a Lunar New Year holiday and discussed his ideas for a new project.
Inspired, Wang and Chang got to work when they returned to Taipei, while Lin went off on a three-month tour with the company that began with Europe in the spring and end in early summer in the US.
And he changed his mind — helped along by Mother Nature, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka and Russian composer Alfred Schnittke.
Lin said he was struck by the beauty of petals falling from flowering trees in the springtime in Europe, something he had never experienced in Taiwan. The European portion of the tour also gave him some time to read and explore.
“When I was a student I tried to read Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, but I failed, so on the three-month tour I tried again and succeeded,” Lin said. “In Prague, we stayed in a hotel that was just across the street from a Jewish cemetery. It was an ocean of green trees that I could see from my window. I entered the cemetery, found Kafka’s grave. Ivy covered all the trunks of the trees. It was like a dream.”
“One day I went across the Charles Bridge and found a small CD shop and heard this music, heard Schnittke. The shop owner introduced me to more,” he said.
“Schnittke’s music is so beautiful … very pleasant. It’s Russian, come on,” he said, meaning it is perfect for choreography.
“So the India trip became Europe, but the designers were already thinking India. In the end it’s a lot of stories,” he said with a laugh.
Like most of Lin’s work, there is not a linear storyline.
“It’s about a lady remembering. A mosaic, every audience has own stories, they have to put it together,” he said. “The whole thing is misty, kind of a dream, a memory somehow … a diary of springtime in Europe.”
It is about what we choose to remember, he said, adding: “Even in the winter trees remember spring blossoms.”
“In the back of my mind, I am thinking the beauty will be gone — it’s the lament of an old person,” he said.
Like many of Lin’s more recent works, much of the beauty of Smoke comes from the visual projections, which were filmed in Germany, although some might wonder what a giant turtle swimming in a room or a panther by a pond might have to do with a European spring.
After the National Theater shows, the company will perform Smoke in Tainan on Nov. 13 and Nov. 14, before taking Moon Water on a three-city tour.
The rest of the NTCH Dancing in Autumn series is a mix of familiar names and new ones, local troupes and foreign companies.
Hot on the heels of Cloud Gate in the National Theater will be Compagnie Maguy Marin from France, making their fourth appearance in Taipei, but the first in a decade. The troupe will give three performances of choreographer Maguy Marin’s May B from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1.
Starting on Nov. 13, Dance Forum Taipei (舞蹈空間) will give three performances on the big stage of a cross-cultural work specially commissioned by the NTCH, Hui (迴). The dance theater performance was conceived by US-born, Scotland-based Josh Armstrong, set to piano music by contemporary Chinese composer Tan Dun (譚盾), with choreography by Netherlands-based Spaniard Ivan Perez Aviles and Taiwan’s own Yang Ming-lung (楊銘隆), with direction and design by the Glasgow-based producing art house Cryptic.
The last program on the main stage will be Complexity of Belonging by Chunky Move from Melbourne, making their second appearance in an NTCH dance series since their Taipei premiere five years ago.
The series also includes three programs upstairs in the Experimental Theater, starting with In Freedom by Jeff Hsieh Chieh-hua (謝杰樺), founder of Anarchy Dance Theater (安娜琪舞蹈劇場) from Nov. 6 to Nov. 8.
Fou Glorieux, a Montreal-based company founded by Louise Lecavalier, will give four performances of So Blue from Nov. 12 to Nov. 15, while Huang Yi’s (黃翊) show Objects (物) & Under the Horizon (地平面以下) will present two pieces, the second a showing of a work in progress. There will be five shows, beginning on Dec. 3.
Performance Notes
WHAT: Smoke
WHEN: Friday and Saturday at 7:45pm, Sunday at 2:45pm; Oct. 23 and Oct. 24 at 7:45pm, Oct. 24 and Oct. 25 at 2:45pm
WHERE: National Theater (國家戲劇院), 21-1 Zhongshan S Rd, Taipei City (台北市中山南路21-1號)
ADMISSION: NT$500 to NT$2,500; available at NTCH box offices, online at www.artsticket.com.tw and at convenience store ticketing kiosks.
ADDITIONAL PERFORMANCES: Nov. 13 at 7:30pm and Nov. 14 at 2:30pm at the Tainan Municipal Cultural Center (臺南文化中心演藝廳), 332, Chunghua East Rd Sec 3, Tainan City (臺南市中華東路3段332號); Moon Water tour: Nov. 20 and 21 at 7:30pm at Kaohsiung Cultural Center’s Chihteh Hall (高雄市文化中心至德堂), 67 Wufu 1st Rd, Kaohsiung City (高雄市五福一路67號); Nov. 28 at 7:30pm and Nov. 29 at 2:30pm at Cultural Affairs Bureau of Hualien County (花蓮縣文化局), 6 Wenfu Rd, Hualien City (花蓮市文復路6號); Dec. 5 at 7:30pm and Dec. 5 at 2:30pm at the Taoyuan County Performing Arts Center (桃園縣展演中心), 1188 Jhongjheng Rd, Taoyuan City (桃園市中正路1188號); tickets range from NT$300 to NT$2,000 for most shows, available online at www.artsticket.com.tw, at convenience store ticketing kiosks and at the door.
This story has been amended since it was first published.
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