Segerstrom Center for the Arts Presents Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan West Coast Premiere of Formosa

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1 CONTACT Tim Choy (323) , David Barber (323) , Tim Dunn (714) x7209, Laura Lanzi (714) x4371, Images: SCFTA.org/media RELEASE DATE Segerstrom Center for the Arts Presents West Coast Premiere of Formosa Three Performances Only March 16 18, 2018 Segerstrom Hall Tickets On Sale Now Costa Mesa, CA makes its Segerstrom Center for the Arts debut performing the West Coast premiere of its new work Formosa, with concept and choreography by company founder Lin Hwai-min. Formosa will have three performances in Segerstrom Hall on March 16, 17 and 18, The music is by Kaija Saariaho, Liang Chun-mei, and Sangpuy Katatepan Mavaliyw. Cloud Gate has been acclaimed as Asia s leading contemporary dance theater (The Times), and One of the finest dance companies in the world (The Globe and Mail). Formosa tells the legend of Portuguese sailors gazing out from the decks of ships off the coast of China during the 16th century. They saw a great green mass, thick with mountains and trees, rising from the sea. Formosa! they exclaimed beautiful! anointing the verdant place that would come to be known to the world as Taiwan. This legend now serves as the inspiration for Lin s latest one act evening-length work.

2 Cloud Gate Dance Theatre NEWS 2/5 Choreographer Lin took that appraisal of beautiful as inspiration for their own work of abstract beauty, born from their land and lore. The Cloud Gate language of movement includes diverse Eastern disciplines such as tai chi, meditation and martial arts mixed with contemporary dance. The lighting design for Formosa is by Lulu W.L. Lee, costume design by Apu Jan, projection design by Chou Tung-yen and Very Mainstream Studio, and videography by Chang Hao-jan (Howell). Tickets for Cloud Gate Dance Theatre performing Formosa start at $29 and may be purchased online at SCFTA.org, the Box Office at 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa or by calling (714) For inquiries about group ticket savings for 10 or more, call the Group Services office at (714) is one of the most important Asian contemporary dance companies that have made a name in the international dance world. Lin leads Cloud Gate as the company s founder, artistic director, and choreographer. He has moved audiences in Taiwan and major cities of the West through his masterpieces rooted in Asian cultures yet vibrating with contemporary resonance. In 2013, he followed in the footsteps of Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and Pina Bausch winning the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Dance Festival. It was recently announced that, after 45 years as the company s leader, Lin will retire from his current position at the end of Cheng Tsung-lung, artistic director of Cloud Gate 2, will succeed him. In addition to their annual season with performances at theaters, Cloud Gate 2 tours communities, and works to develop young dancers and choreographers. There is also the Cloud Gate Dance School, which focuses on making dance education more broadly available. A self-taught choreographer, Lin often draws from Asian cultures and aesthetics to create works with contemporary resonance. In Formosa, using gesture, script, song and other elements from the island as raw material, Lin and dancers create a lustrous, transfigured sphere in which only the universal remains a playground of love and life, mediated by tragedy, hope, and rebirth. To a musical score, which includes a performance by award-winning indigenous singer Sangpuy, dancers mingle in intimations of community, making tribal ritual and urban bustle seem as one. Luminous projected images of Chinese character typefaces, interlocked and overlapped, provide the stunning visual backdrop. Devoid of specific meanings, they merge in teeming thickets to evoke a host of imagery: mountains, rivers, earthquakes, tsunamis, ancient inscriptions, a black sun. They seem to imply writing as a precarious vehicle for memories, which blur and recombine at the whim of history s wind. At the work s end, a blue sea appears amid the characters only to wash them away in the waves. The ocean rages; the dancers exit. The stage turns to a vacuum of white.

3 Cloud Gate Dance Theatre NEWS 3/5 In a 2015 feature, The New York Times said, Cloud Gate was Taiwan s first professional dance company and is the island s pre-eminent performance group. It has become a roving, bounding symbol of this island. [At a rehearsal of Rice, for] 70 minutes, the dancers stamped, leapt and folded and unfolded their bodies in a demonstration of Cloud Gate s hybrid aesthetic, which combines Western classical dance techniques with Eastern rounded movements that draw on martial arts and tai chi. Broadwayworld.com praises "the forcefulness in the choreography and the effortless athleticism of the dancers," while The Washington Post says, "The company possesses an extraordinarily supple and disciplined movement style." Says Lin, "I never dreamed I would become a choreographer. I just wanted to do something that speaks to society. Brian Seibert in The New York Times said, The choreography, by the troupe s founder and artistic director, Lin Hwai-min, is in his signature style of Martha Graham meets martial arts, a calligraphic flow of gradual accumulations, slow motion and controlled explosions of speed. An international group of performing arts centers are the co-producers of Formosa, including National Performing Arts Center - National Theater & Concert Hall, Taiwan, R.O.C., National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying), Taiwan, R.O.C., Sadler's Wells, London, UK, Théâtre de la Ville Paris, France, Carolina Performing Arts, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA and Movimentos Festwochen der Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany. 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:. For more than forty-five years,, led by Lin, has celebrated Asian culture and aesthetics - and thrilled audiences - with its inventive blend of Qigong, martial arts, modern dance and ballet. After a blaze destroyed Cloud Gate s rented studio in 2008, more than 4,000 public donations came in to support the company to build a home base the Cloud Gate Theatre. Inaugurated in 2015, the Theatre presents performances from around the world and opens its verdant outdoor space to the public, attracting tens of thousands of visitors every year. Lin Hwai-min was first known publicly in Taiwan as a fiction writer. He started his modern dance training at the age of 23, while working on his MFA degree at the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. He founded in Taipei in 1973 after studying at the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance.

4 Cloud Gate Dance Theatre NEWS 4/5 Among the honors Lin Hwai-min has received are the Samuel H. Scripts / American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, the John D. Rockefeller III Award, the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the Ministry of Culture of France, and honorary doctorates from six universities in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Time Magazine honored Lin one of Asia s Heroes. This tour is made possible by the grants from the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan). Segerstrom Center for the Arts International Dance Series is made possible by the Audrey Steele Burn and Endowed Fund for International Dance and The Segerstrom Foundation Endowment for Great Performances. Segerstrom Center for the Arts thanks its corporate partners including Kia Motors America, Official Automotive Partner; United Airlines, Official Airline; and Omaha Steaks International, Official Fine Food Retailer. Classical KUSC and COAST Magazine are Media Partners of the International Dance Series. Segerstrom Center for the Arts is an acclaimed arts institution as well as a beautiful multi-disciplinary cultural campus. It is committed to supporting artistic excellence, offering unsurpassed experiences and to engaging the entire community in new and exciting ways through the unique power of live performance and a diverse array of inspiring arts-based education and community engagement programs. Previously called the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Center is Orange County s largest non-profit arts organization. In addition to its six performance venues, Segerstrom Center is also home to the American Ballet Theatre William J. Gillespie School. The Center presents a broad range of programming for audiences of all ages, including international ballet and dance, national tours of top Broadway shows, jazz and cabaret, contemporary artists, classical music performed by renowned chamber orchestras and ensembles, family-friendly programming, free performances open to the public from outdoor movie screenings to dancing on the plaza and many other special events. Segerstrom Center is a leader among the nation s performing arts centers for providing education programs designed to inspire young people through the arts. The Center s programs reach hundreds of thousands of students each year in five Southern California counties. Community engagement programs developed through the Center for Dance and Innovation and Center Without Boundaries also connect the Center more comprehensively with Orange County s many diverse communities. The CDI supports flagship artistic programming and a wide range of projects that celebrate innovation, nurture creativity and engage audiences of the future. It is home to the ABT Gillespie School and the School of Dance and Music for

5 Cloud Gate Dance Theatre NEWS 5/5 Children with Disabilities. The Center Without Boundaries develops partnerships with non-cultural organizations to help them in their own efforts to respond the ever-changing needs of the community. Formosa West Coast Premiere Segerstrom Hall 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA March 16 18, 2018 Friday & Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at 1:00 p.m. Tickets - Start at $29 In person - The Box Office Online Town Center Drive Costa Mesa, CA Open 10 a.m. 6 p.m. daily SCFTA.org Phone - (714) Open 10 a.m. 6 p.m. daily Group Sales - (714) Information provided is accurate at the time of printing, but is subject to change. Segerstrom Center for the Arts is a private, non-profit organization. Segerstrom Center for the Arts is a registered trademark. # # #