Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, Formosa

Event Type
Performance
Event Description

In the 16th century, gazing out from the decks of ships off the coast of China, Portuguese sailors saw it: a great green mass, thick with mountains and trees, rising from the sea. “Formosa!" they exclaimed, “beautiful!" anointing the verdant place that would come to be known as Taiwan. In this new work, choreographer Lin Hwai-min and his Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan take that appraisal as inspiration for their own work of abstract beauty born from land and lore. 

Recorded music by award-winning indigenous singer Sangpuy serves as the soundtrack as the dancers mingle in intimations of community, making tribal ritual and urban bustle seem as one. Using gesture, script, song, and other elements from the island as raw material, Lin and dancers create a lustrous, transfigured sphere—a playground of love and life, mediated by tragedy, hope, and rebirth.

“When you’re talking about Cloud Gate, magic is not too strong a word.”  Time Out

 
The Dance Center presentation of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan is supported by Alphawood Foundation Chicago.
 
This tour is made possible by grants from the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan).
 
Co-producers: National Performing Arts Center - National Theater & Concert Hall, Taiwan, R.O.C.; National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying), Taiwan, R.O.C.; Sadler’s Wells, London, UK; Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, France; Carolina Performing Arts, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA; Movements Festwochen der Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany.

 

 

Location

Harris Theater for Music and Dance

205 E. Randolph St.
Chicago, IL 60601
(312) 334-2400