Cloud Gate 2 (雲門2) returned to the Joyce Theater in New York on Wednesday night with the US premiere of the award-winning On the Road.
Choreographed by the troupe’s associate artistic director Cheng Tsung-lung (鄭宗龍), the piece won Cheng the Taishin Arts Award for Performing Arts in May last year and Best Group at Premio Roma Danza’s 1st International Choreographic Competition in July 2011.
The piece features elements from contemporary dance and Taiwanese religious rituals based on those of traditional temples, which Cheng hopes can offer audiences a unique way of experiencing two art forms and two cultures at once.
Photo: AFP
“It is clear and simple in the best way possible. You understand his intent from the moment you see it,” Joyce Theater executive director Linda Shelton said after Wednesday night’s show.
Shelton, who was a judge for for last year’s Taishin Arts Awards, was impressed by the piece, which she said merges light and shadow with rich and inventive movement.
Cheng said the inspiration for the piece, which fuses Eastern and Western elements, came to him in 2010, when he was literally “on the road” traveling in China’s Yunnan Province with two Cloud Gate 2 dancers, Chiang Pao-shu (江保樹) and Luo Sih-wei (駱思維).
Although the three men share similar backgrounds, they have different personalities, Cheng said, describing Luo as a perfectionist and Chiang as more laid back. Their similarities and differences helped Cheng to see different sides of himself, he said.
The score combines Taiwanese folk songs, traditional Naxi and Islamic music and Tom Waits songs.
On the Road is the second piece from Cloud Gate 2 to be put on at the Joyce Theater, where it will run through Sunday. The troupe made their New York debut in February last year, performing four works, including Cheng’s The Wall.
Cloud Gate 2 was founded in 1999 by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre (雲門舞集) founder and artistic director Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) and prominent dancer and teacher Lo Man-fei (羅曼菲).
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do