After a five-year battle with lung cancer, renowned dancer Lo Man-fei (羅曼菲) died early yesterday morning at the age of 51.
The Cloud Gate Dance Theater (雲門舞集), with whom Lo had a long relationship, announced it will set up a fund to create an award in her name, and the Dance Department of the Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) is to hold a special retrospective of her work from next Tuesday through April 20.
Lo discovered that she had lung cancer in 2001, but remained passionately committed to her dance performances, choreography and teaching.
PHOTO: CNA
She was known as a graceful figure, often represented as the epitome of health and beauty in the press, and as an example of success in fulfilling one's dreams.
The dancer will be cremated and her ashes scattered around a tree next to her father's grave in a simple ceremony, according to her wishes.
Born in Taipei, Lo's family moved to Ilan when she was three months old. In November last year the Ilan County Cultural Bureau commissioned artist Lin Chien-cheng (
Lo graduated from National Taiwan University's Department of Foreign Language and Literatures and gained her Masters from New York University.
In her early career she performed for the Neo-Classic Dance Company of Taiwan and was also in the cast of The King and I during the time she spent in New York. In 1979, she joined Cloud Gate, and was appointed the artistic director of Cloud Gate 2 in 1999.
In 1985 she began teaching in TNUA's dance department, and established the Taipei Crossover Dance Company in 1994, together with other first generation Cloud Gate dancers including Wu Su-chun (
Lo received the Wu San-lien Award of Literature and the Arts in 1999 and the National Culture and Arts Foundation's National Award for the Arts in 2000.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS