TAIPEI, Taiwan -- To the soft tinkling of wind chimes, dancers in black and white trousers stretch out their legs in slow martial art kicks. Some bend and curve their bodies, gracefully mimicking Chinese characters flowing across white rice paper.\nThe members of the Cloud Gate Dance Theater are performing "Cursive II," a production that converts to human form the soft but powerful movements of calligraphy in a simple and abstract setting. Cloud Gate founder Lin Hwai-min created the dance to mark the 30th birthday of the troupe, which has won wide acclaim for an intriguing blend of East and West, modernity and tradition. The troupe is performing this fall in Los Angeles, New York and Melbourne, Australia.\n"Cursive II" also marks a new horizon for the prolific Taiwanese choreographer as he turns 56.\nLin had but a modest wish when he founded Cloud Gate in 1973 after ending a career in fiction writing to study modern dance with legendary American dancer Martha Graham.\n"I wanted to create something of our own, not living under the shadow of New York or London," the slim, energetic Lin said in his studio in Tamsui outside Taiwan's capital, Taipei.\nHe has since choreographed more than 60 dances to build a rich repertoire that draws on themes and ideas from China, Japan, India and Europe.
In early dances like "Tale of the White Serpent," Lin was inspired mostly by Chinese myths and tales. His 1978 epic "Legend" recounts the sea journey of Taiwanese emigrating from China.\nOver the last decade, though, his work has turned more inward, spiritual and abstract, often without plots.\nHis dancers have had to master Peking opera moves, ballet, meditation, brush painting and tai chi the slow-motion martial art that focuses on the use of energy or "chi."\n"Cursive" was the opening attraction at the American Dance Festival this year. Dancers use flowing movements to imitate the lines and strokes of Chinese brush writing.\nIn the sequel, "Cursive II," the dancers are freed from the forms of calligraphy and martial arts, but all those elements still infuse the dance.\n"Everything becomes more visible against the backdrop of whiteness," Lin said. "With his brush, a master Chinese calligrapher puts down a dot imagining a rock falling from a cliff. It is the energy, the vibrating of the air that we want in the dance, not the forms."\nLin also slowed down his 24 dancers in "Cursive II."\n"When you slow down, you see more of the nice things. You do a tiny something, and your entire body comes this way, and you transmit the physical sensation to the last row of the theater," he said, moving his fingers and torso in a graceful dancing gesture.\nDance without plots or fanfare takes highly skilled dancers, something Cloud Gate's troupe was unable to do in the early years, he said.\n"When the dancers couldn't lift their legs so straight, we covered it up with costumes and scripts," Lin joked.\nBut now his dancers are "meticulously beautiful," he said.\nLin follows his instincts and interests in the selection of music. For "Cursive II," he uses the string music of the late American composer John Cage. In a similar marriage, Bach's music fits nicely in "Moon Water," a 1998 production that pays homage to the motions of tai chi.\nSwitching from one culture to another comes naturally to Lin. He said he grew up in a multilingual, multicultural society, reading fairy tales like "Cinderella" and watching the movie "Farewell to Arms" and Charlie Chaplin's comedies.\n"I don't categorize the elements as Chinese or Indian. When you're moved, you're moved," he said.\nCloud Gate caused a sensation during 1993 and 2001 performances in China, which is home to many of the ideas in Lin's dances.\nYu Qiuyu, a noted Chinese scholar of ascetics, marvels at Lin's grip of "a great art that expands through a millennium and is all inclusive in its scope."\n"As a Chinese, you would think you know everything about the subject, but what's unveiled before you is much grander, deeper, mistier and stronger," Yu wrote in an article marking Cloud Gate's 30th year.
