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Cloud Gate big in the Big Apple

The Cloud Gate Dance Theater once again impressed audiences in New York on Tuesday evening with choreographer Lin Hwai-min's (林懷民) calligraphy-inspired production Wild Cursive.

The opening performance of the 25th Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) drew a full house.

Wild Cursive is the final chapter of Lin's trilogy. After studying Chinese calligraphy masterpieces, Lin created the first installment of Cursive in 2001.

Lin told reporters in New York that producing the trilogy had much to do with the development of the dancers. He said that training in martial arts, tai chi, modern dance, ballet, meditation and Chinese opera enabled the dancers to become "human brushes."

In 2003, Cloud Gate opened the Melbourne International Arts Festival with Cursive II, which won both the Age Critics' Award and the Patrons' Award. Last year, Cursive: A Trilogy was chosen as the best choreography of the year in a poll of critics by Ballettanz and Theaterheute.

Cloud Gate made its BAM Next Wave debut in 1995 with Nine Songs. In 2000, the dance theater brought Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha inspired Songs of the Wanderers to the Next Wave, and in 2003 was invited to present the internationally acclaimed Moon Water at the festival.
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