Chinese dance based on meditation and Tai Chi: Cloud Gate (Documentary, 1999)

According to legend, Cloud Gate is the name of the oldest known dance in China, a ritual dance some 5,000 years old. In 1973, choreographer Lin Hwai-min adopted this classical name for the first modem dance company in Taiwan or China: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre.

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Since its founding in 1973, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan has received high public and critical acclaim for its astonishing performances all over the world. At home the company enjoys an almost cult status: giving free outdoor performances several times a year, drawing audiences of up to 80,000 people for each performance. Founder and artistic director of this first contemporary dance company in any Chinese speaking community is Lin Hwai-min, praised as an unchallenged giant of Asia.

Lin Hwai-min talks in interview about his development as a choreographer and the broad background to his style, which embraces both American and Oriental dance, from Martha Graham and classical ballet to Tai Chi and Chinese Opera. He also explains the important role meditation plays in his company’s training and creative process, and lights on some of his sources of inspiration for Songs of the Wanderers: the religious practices of Buddhism and Hinduism; the childhood frustration of being forbidden to play in the rice after it had been harvested, because, in Asia, rice is sacred; and Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. The Cloud Gate dancers are seen taking classes in Tai Chi and in illustrative extracts from the work.

Original title - Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan: Meditation in Music
Directed by Thomas Gonschior and Christoph Manß, 1999

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