Review in The Telegraph.

And in The Times.

MORE

[This message has been edited by Joanne (edited May 30, 2002).]

<small>[ 20 January 2005, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

<P><BR><B>Best value of the year?</B><P>As you can see above the first of the London critics loved this show to bits. <P>And there is a londondance special offer that we have been authorised to promote here.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan<BR>Buy best available seats for only £10 when you call the Sadler's Wells ticket office on 020 7863 8000 and quote londondance.com offer. This offer is subject to availability and not available retrospectively.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited May 30, 2002).]

Also in the <A HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_2014000/2014670.stm" TARGET=_blank><B>BBC website</B></A>.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>This smooth yet devastatingly strong motion is as it should be in the traditional Chinese discipline of tai chi. The ideal state of tai chi practitioners is described as: "Energy flows as water, while the spirit shines as the moon."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <P>This is actually the first I've read of it and it sounds so wonderful. Is anyone going?<p>[This message has been edited by sylvia (edited May 30, 2002).]

Review in The Guardian.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The inspiration for Cloud Gate's current production Moon Water is the t'ai chi state of calm, in which a person's "energy flows as water and [their] spirit shines as the moon". As certain excessively calm t'ai chi-based shows have demonstrated, this state is best experienced directly. When staged it can make audiences develop a very un-t'ai chi grudge against performers more interested in breath control than keeping us amused. But Cloud Gate's choreographer, Lin Hwai-min, has made his career out of a canny fusion of east and west aesthetics. And in Moon Water some of the images he creates from his 16 immaculate dancers are stirringly beautiful. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,3604,724396,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

Did no one go to see this? I really wish I had had the opportunity to go - it sounded very very interesting but I haven't met anyone that went to see it.

<B>High water marks</B> <BR>Like a good cup of tea, Cloud Gate’s Moonwater is warm, wet, and well worth taking in, while <B>BRB’s Hobson</B> is a gem<BR>By DAVID DOUGILL in Th Sunday Times<P><BR>Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan is now in its 30th year, and much travelled, but the company’s appearance at Sadler’s Wells last week was only its second visit to London. Nobody who saw the director-choreographer Lin Hwai-min’s production of Songs of the Wanderers at the Wells three years ago has forgotten the magical spectacle, with its stage setting created from masses of dried rice. “Oh yes, Cloud Gate,” people still say, “that was the one with the rice.” <BR>This time, with the performance entitled Moonwater, Lin has moved from dry to wet — although the water doesn’t flow until the final section. Liquidness, though, is the essence of Lin’s choreography throughout: in the fluid undulations of each dancer’s body, solo, or passed between the artists in their fluctuating ensembles. <P><A HREF="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2101-310950,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><P><BR>

<B>Moon Water</B><BR>By AC Grayling from Online Review London<P><BR>To the strains of Bach's Cello Suites the Cloud Gate ensemble perform a slow and extraordinarily poised dance version of Tai Chi, the exercise routine based on infinitely slow martial arts movements. The physical control they display is miraculous, and many of the poses and attitudes of Tai Chi, and the closely related Chinese opera gestures which appear here too, are beautiful.<P>There are two states of mind this performance can induce in an observer. One is a kind of trance, which the mesmeric evolutions and extraordinary strength and balance of the dancers induce as if by hypnosis. The other, at least after ten minutes of fascination at the whole-body dexterity of the dancers, is ennui; for the music and the movements are repetitive, painstaking, without evolution, without narrative, simply a long repeating sequence of the same patterns and movements, seamlessly and relentlessly unfolding into each other and back again, like a stuck record. <P><A HREF="http://www.onlinereviewlondon.com/cloudgate.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

Two review from The Independent.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Were medical researchers to have taken the blood pressure and pulse rate of Sadler's Wells patrons at the door last week, and again on exit, they would have noted a dramatic change. Something happens to a body in the presence of Taiwan's Cloud Gate Dance Theatre – something calming, balancing, almost tranquillising. And it's safer than Valium and a lot more fun than a flotation tank.<P><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/reviews/story.jsp?story=301812" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A><P>And<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>For its second visit, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan has brought us Moon Water, a show that all aspiring set designers should see. It is a crash course in how to be stunning with the simplest of means: an empty darkened space, a floor – its black surface streaked with frosty concentric crescents – and a few mirrors. The mirrors later multiply into a back wall that reflects the dancers, while water oozes on to the floor and threads the occasional gaps in the music with the sound of trickling. One source for the title is a Buddhist saying: "Flowers in a mirror and a moon on the water are both illusive."<P><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/reviews/story.jsp?story=301686" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

<B>Moon Water</B> <BR>By Lucy Wallis in The Stage <P> <BR>Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, the first contemporary dance company in any Chinese speaking community, brings its own blend of Eastern promise to London again with the intention of challenging our preconceptions of Chinese dance.<P>It is interesting to see how choreographer Lin Hwai-Min seamlessly knits together elements of Chinese culture with the ebb and flow of contemporary dance. <P>Simplicity and concentration is at the heart of this production. Circular stage designs and androgynous white silk costumes ensure that your attention is focused purely on the dancers' skills.<P><A HREF="http://www.thestage.co.uk/paper/0224/0206.shtml" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

Sorry for the lateness of this review: my laptop was holding my review hostage as it would not communicate with my A drive nor with the modem. I have finally beaten it out of it, however!<P>------------------------------------------<P>Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, a Taiwanese dance company presented Moon Water this week at Sadler’s Wells. Named after the oldest known Chinese ritual dance, and formed in 1973 by Lin Hwai-Min as the first contemporary dance ensemble in Chinese speaking world, the company has a rich tradition of mixing Eastern dance and Western influences. Moon Water is a fine example of this, as the company uses tai-chi derived movements to Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello.<P>East-West fusion has long been a popular concept in Britain (indeed there is a Japanese-Mediterranean restaurant in the vicinity of Sadler’s Wells), but it has been one that has been actualised with mixed success. A particularly odd experience of lemon-grass and chilli rice pudding had put me off fusion some time ago, but Cloudgate are an example to all would-be cultural interminglers as to how to do it with style, panache, ingenuity and imagination. <P>Indeed, I would argue that Cloud Gate’s dancing surpasses mere fusion. Moon Water takes tai chi and Bach’s cello suites, and not only brings them into close union, but truly creates something unique from the two components. The result is something that left the audience visibily moved, and that marks Cloudgate out as a real force in contemporary dance.<P>The programme states the choreographer’s intend to create a work that is a poetic rendering of the Taoist philosophy as the title is reminiscent of both Buddhist proverbs and the state Tai Chi practitioners seeks to attain. Certainly many of its Eastern philosophical precepts are examined in the work. The oneness of self and environment is explored through a set of burnished mirrors that reflect and refract the dancers until even the surroundings dance; and the ending scenes when the stage is flooded with water that embodies the fluidity of the dancers. The chorus of dancers epitomises the idea of being many in body and one in mind as they move with complete harmony and unity through complex sequences of movement. And yet there is a maintenance of individuality in expression and form of dance, so that we are intensely aware that we are watching accomplished individuals.<P>Indeed, all of the solo performances were exceptional. Chou Chang-Ning, who danced to Suite No. 1 deserves recognition. Chou was the very embodiment of the cello in this section: the dancing lyrical, taught, sonorous. <P>The performers were captivating in both movement and stillness. One of the extraordinary attributes of the Tai Chi technique is the ability to sustain positions for a very long period of time and to move extremely slowly. Also impressive were swift movements from held postures, done with the rapidity and fluidity of a snake. It takes immense control and suppleness to acquire and sustain such positions, and great co-ordination to move en masse through a series of positions. The ability of the dancers could not be doubted. <P>The only objection I have with the piece surrounds the use of water on stage at the end. We had been treated to the sight of immense elegance for 60 odd minutes, but were left with an image of dancers sloshing around in a puddle of water like a cross between naughty school children and beached whales. To my mind, the use of water affected the illusion of tranquillity and the sound of water been thrown around broke the connection between the Bach pieces and the dance. Cloud Gate had managed to mesmerise the audience in both silence and to the strains of Bach, but the onlookers got decidedly fidgety in the wake of water being thrown about the stage. <P>Nevertheless Cloud Gate Dance Theatre had presented us with a piece replete with beauty and meaning, danced with style, elegance and grace. The piece was truly extraordinary, and the company was rightly given a standing ovation. It is a long time since I have seen the usually restrained London audience stand and clap, but it was well deserved. I look forward to Cloud Gate’s return to these shores. <BR>

Thanks a lot MariaR. In a very busy week I missed this one and I'm kicking myself. I hope they return before too long. Perhaps a smaller venue like The Peacock or the QEH would suit the audience demand better.<P>

Some of the critics seem to have found Bamboo Dream a little vacuous but I have to say I loved it. Call me superficial, but it really is a beautiful spectacle, and for me the allure is in the mystery, the fantasy and the fairy tale-ness, rather than in deciphering the characters and their motives. It is a dream after all.