Lin Hwai-min

2012/2013 Dance Mentor

Published in 2011

Hailed as Asia’s premier choreographer, Lin Hwai-min, 64, has pioneered Chinese contemporary dance since founding the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan nearly 40 years ago. His amalgamation of styles prompted the New York Times to comment: “Lin Hwai-min has succeeded brilliantly in fusing dance techniques and theatrical concepts from the East and the West.”

Lin reveals that he became “hooked” on dance at age five after watching the famous British film, The Red Shoes, 11 times. But, it was only when he saw the groundbreaking choreographer José Limón perform ten years later that he decided to be a dancer.

After training at the New York studios of Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Lin returned to his native Taiwan in 1973 to set up Cloud Gate, the first contemporary Chinese dance company. His early works, including the debut Tale of the White Serpent, were reinterpretations of traditional Chinese epics and opera mixed with a modern perspective. The company’s reputation soared in the 1990s when Lin abandoned narrative and began creating a new dance vocabulary with less culturally specific pieces such as Songs of the Wanderers and Moon Water, inspired by Tai Chi, the Chinese concept of qi (energy) and calligraphy. “To me dance is not about meaning, it’s about bodies in movement, dynamics and energy,” says Lin whose goal is to draw in the audience emotionally, a result he has achieved with the Cursive trilogy and the recent Water Stains on the Wall, among other creations.

Lin, an equally talented writer, also fosters young Taiwanese choreographers through Cloud Gate 2, the company he founded in 1999. The recipient of numerous prestigious awards, among them the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Movimentos Dance Prize, Germany, he was chosen as one of “Asia’s Heroes” by Time Asia in 2005.