Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan
"One of the best dance companies in the world" (FAZ)
"One of the best dance companies in the world" (FAZ)
Cloud Gate is the name of the oldest known dance in China. In 1973, choreographer LIN Hwai-min adopted this classical name and founded the first contemporary dance company in the greater Chinese-speaking community. In 2020, CHENG Tsung-lung succeeded LIN as the company’s Artistic Director. In 2023, Cloud Gate celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Cloud Gate has set out to engage with local history, culture, and subject matter and draws on classical, folk, and modern dance from both the Western and Asian traditions. Its dancers receive training in meditation; Qi Gong, an ancient breathing exercise; internal martial arts; modern dance; and ballet. Under the leadership of CHENG, the training has expanded to more dancing styles, such as street dance. Manifesting in choreographies, the company transforms ancient aesthetics into a thrilling and modern celebration of motion.
Cloud Gate has toured worldwide with frequent engagements at the Next Wave Festival in New York, the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, the Moscow Chekhov International Theatre Festival in Russia, the Movimentos International Dance Festival, and the Internationales Tanzfest NRW, directed by the late Pina Bausch in Germany.
WAVES
Navigate the digital waves of our times with our bodies.
13 Tongues
13 Tongues is a sensationally big, indulgent, and visually arresting expression of cultural memory. (The Times)
Cloud Gate: Haluko Huang
Email: halukohuang@cloudgate.org.tw
Phone: +886-2-26298558 ext 3203
North America Agent: Cathy Pruzan / Artist Representative
Email: cpruzan@aol.com
Phone: +1-415-789-5051
WAVES
Selected as one of the “Fifty Contemporary Choreographers” by Routledge Publishing, Cloud Gate’s Artistic Director, CHENG Tsung-lung, invited the renowned digital media artist Daito MANABE to create the new work WAVES, envisioning the unseen body. They aimed to collect dancing body movements as digital data, undergo transformation through artificial intelligence, push dancers to the boundaries of human movement in cognition, and offer an alternative perspective on how we perceive the world around us.
Choreography/Concept: CHENG Tsung-lung
Concept/Visual/Music/Program: Daito MANABE
Lighting Design: SHEN Po-hung
Costume Design: FAN Huai-chih
Film and Editing Director: Kenichiro SHIMIZU
VFX Programmer: Ayumu NAGAMATSU
Machine Learning Engineer/2bit Manipulator/Production Manager: Keisuke KIKUCHI
13 Tongues
As a child, Cloud Gate Artistic Director CHENG Tsung-lung sold slippers on the streets of the oldest district in Taipei. Here he combines his memories with folk memories of a legendary 1960s street artist and story-teller known as “Thirteen Tongues,” who, it was said, could vividly conjure up all the characters: high and low born; sacred and profane; men and women.
On a stage awash with projections of brilliant colors, shapes, and images, with music ranging from Taoist chants to folk songs to electronica, the dancers gather, interact, separate and re-gather in a thrilling representation of the clamor of street life that appears to merge and dissolve time and space and beliefs in an immersive honoring of memories and stories.
Choreography: CHENG Tsung-lung
Music: LIM Giong
Art Design: HO Chia-hsing
Lighting Design: SHEN Po-hung
Projection Design: Ethan WANG
Costume Design: LIN Bing-hao
Voice Coach: TSAI Pao-chang
13 Tongues demonstrates beautifully the extraordinary, elemental quality of the Cloud Gate dancers, energy coursing through their butter-soft, titanium-strength bodies, limbs curling like tendrils of smoke.
—The Guardian
CHENG’s movement language is remarkable, showing exceptional range and masterful structure, […] Each dancer is of soloist standard and when given their spotlight opportunity they leap into action with lithe, flexible, and powerful bodies. It’s magic.
—SeeingDance
North American & Europe tour in discussion
Italy (International premiere)
France; North American tour (US & Canada)
Germany
Ireland
London (UK); Ludwigshafen (Germany)
Barcelona, Madrid, Tenerife (Spain); Cannes (France)
Sounding Light (2020)
Send In A Cloud (2022)