Cloud Gate leads to a ‘third world’ of dance

Clustered together on an unadorned stage, the dancers kneel and rise, their arms outstretched like hawks.

In another routine, black-clad dancers simulate flowing, kung fu fighting.

Welcome to “Cursive I,” part of the Taiwanese Cloud Gate Dance Theater’s “Cursive” trilogy. The company encourages its dancers to use their bodies for pure expression over storytelling.

“Our teachers tell our students the human body is 90% water, so your movement has to resemble water, be as loose as water,” founder and artistic director Lin Hwai-min said in a recent interview.

Lin said his dancers must be strong in fundamental technique in order to surpass it. “If you’re not strong in technique, you can be carried by the story, by costumes,” he said.

Blending traditional Chinese elements and modern dance is Cloud Gate’s trademark -- and largely the vision of Lin. He defied a traditional Chinese bias against the performing arts to train as a dancer, discovering a passion for modern dance in his teens after watching a performance by American Jose Limon.

But caving into societal expectations that valued scholarship, he pursued writing and made his name as a promising writer in Taiwan. Lin studied journalism and attended the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. But he never gave up dance, taking classes at the University of Iowa and schools in New York that followed the teachings of Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham.

In 1973, he started Cloud Gate in a studio above a Taiwanese noodle shop. Now, 33 years later, it’s a world-renowned modern dance company with performances booked into 2008.

Cloud Gate has graced such stages as the Kennedy Center in Washington, and Lin was named “choreographer of the 20th century” by Dance Europe magazine.

“Lin Hwai-min blends the East and the West into a third world of his own,” declared German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.

Lin, 59, said he hasn’t done any serious dance workouts since he last performed about 23 years ago, but he still looks like a dancer: short and muscular, his robust torso stretching his shirt.

Lin, who sprinkles English sentences and phrases into a mostly Chinese exchange, gestures wildly when demonstrating a dance move. He said he has evolved over the years -- from a choreographer who dictated dancers’ moves to a leader who collaborates.

“Everything comes from their bodies. Therefore, very organic,” Lin said. “When I was young I thought things were clear-cut. Things had to be straightforward. Now I’m not this way.”

Fellow dancer Tom Brown said Lin was a rarity in the modern dance world. Lin, he said, has devoted more than three decades to mold a group of dancers. In some companies in the West, turnover is high and few choreographers command the focus that Lin does.

The result is a very centered, physical style.

“European modern dance and even American modern dance quite often is about gesture. It’s gesture-driven, if you will, and the thing that I find interesting about his work is that it’s driven from something in the core of the body,” said Brown, associate dean of dance at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Brown attributed Lin’s appeal to his training methods.

“He gives them things to read. They have improvisation sections. They talk about painting,” Brown said. “Whether or not he pays them richly ... the experience itself is completely compelling and completely demanding.”

Despite Cloud Gate’s status, Lin said funding is still a struggle. The Taiwanese government chips in, but Cloud Gate still needs to tour heavily to galvanize interest among potential donors.

With two dance companies and a dance school, Lin is busy all year round.

“It’s always a battle from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve,” he said, joking. “Doing a good job running these three organizations only leaves me with half a life.”