Cloud Gate leads to a `third world' of dance

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.