WHAT HAS BEEN SAID ABOUT BAMBOO DREAM... Such beauty and perfection, as seen in . . . Bamboo Dream . . . is hardly offered in the current dance world. --Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The movements are vivacious, the flow uninterrupted, the sensuality present before the bodies dislocate themselves into even stranger positions that arises from their daily training in Tai Chi. One follows the smallest sudden starts of the sound and the bodies. Great Art --Le Figaro Cloud Gate Dance Theatre loves to play with prodigious sets. . . . They plant a bamboo forest. Plant is the word. While the water cascaded [in Moon Water] and the rice rained [in Songs of the Wanderers] in direct participation with the choreography, these large stalks are aesthetic and static spectacles. The audacious Lin Hwai-Min dreams up an abstract jungle where visitors are transformed . . . The bamboo guides the trajectory of the dancers/surfers who hide, flow, and roll in its vegetative maze. At the same time, it lifts them towards the light. Total symbiosis between grass and human in a universe of yearning and elegance, purity and fluidity. The hosts of the bamboo-entities live in harmony with nature. The seven scenes from Bamboo Dream evoke the four seasons, the time it makes and that which passes. Twenty strollers frolic, flee and attach themselves in extremely sensual choreographic compositions. The fabric of the kimonos float in the air and too bad if the breeze of a storm lifts the skirts of the girls . . . Symphonic music and the flute of a shaman accompany these aerial games liberally inspired by tai chi gestures and classical ballet. Bamboo Dream is technically perfect, philosophically very Zen. --Le Progrès Inspires awe through exciting dance art. The great duo in Autumn Path describes mature forms . . . Out of the plie, a contemplative crouch, stronger and stronger embraces from both dancers develop, just like Romeo and Juliet in the forest. Then the dusk sets in, snowdrifts through the room, the end is near. Beautiful pictures fascinate. The back curtain lifts. The view of a bare backstage with real mechanics is opened. Dancers and stage workers clean up the stage together. Wild applause is the reward for the brilliant Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. --Wiesbadener Kurier Bamboo Dream strikes as Lin Hwai-min's best, most inspired and picturesque choreography. --Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung When you're talking about Cloud Gate, magic is not too strong a word. --Time Out