WHAT HAS BEEN SAID ABOUT CURSIVE...

[Cursive] was the opening attraction of this summer's annual American Dance Festival, and the festivities could not have gotten off to a lovelier start.

--The New York Times

Lin Hwai-min draws with the bodies of his dancers a new artwork, fed by the same energy that generations of Chinese calligraphers used in pushing their ink brushes. Every other artistic expression pales in comparison to the physical art that emerges out of the combination of lighting.....projection of classical and modern calligraphy in an always new and changing window,.....Lin Hwai-min's choreographic strength and fantasy, and the physical commitment of the dancers.

--Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

What dancers! Their assurance, fluidity and discipline are simply breathtaking. The mixture of traditional Asian gesture, martial arts-inspired leaps, kicks and slaps and the audible breath of the dancers create a mesmerizing language before our eyes.

--Durham News & Observer

Cursive, the breathtaking, perception-altering work by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan.....is a masterpiece of form and feeling. Building brilliantly on one of the most ancient and important visual arts of the East, it digs deep into the essence of calligraphy and comes up with a gorgeous equivalent of this art form in both movement and music. In the process, something altogether new and stunningly modern emerges. The 19 dancers of the Cloud Gate company possess a control and articulation that verge on the superhuman. These are performers who can make stillness every bit as eloquent as animation. In fact, they have the power to change your metabolism.

--Chicago Sun Times

Theatrical magic. At one point the entire stage became a gigantic scroll. Multitudes of calligraphic signs flooded the floor, the stage walls and even the proscenium arch. Calligraphic designs also flashed on the dancers' bodies as they moved. Dancing and calligraphy merged here into a single art of motion. But Cursive was more than a display of technological wizardry. The dance steps were varied and impressive. There were slow meditative bendings and stretching as well as moments when arms seemed to be writing words in the air with jagged or flowing gestures. Dancers also heartily ran and tumbled. At other times they skimmed with the utmost lightness and delicacy. Throughout Cursive the dancers gave the impression that they were luxuriating in the sheer joy of movement. Dance and calligraphy proclaimed messages throughout the work. Yet a knowledge of foreign languages was not necessary to understand them. Cursive affirmed the glory of beauty itself.

--The New York Times

What an undertaking: without imitating the flow of the paintbrush through dance, without having the body track the long dried-out script, without just tracing the sense of drawing, he creates an erotic connection between the body of a drawn symbol and the body of a dancer. Out of the silent strength of their improvisational movement, the dancers conjure an unbelievable technical ability that, immersed in the classically strong lighting of designer Chang Tsan-tao, becomes an optical entrapment. Not one-second do you turn your head from the scene.

--Suddeutsche Zeitung

Beautiful danced writing overwhelmed the audience of over 900 at the sold-out VW-Kraftwerk. Movement, dynamic and individual expression possibilities were all in play in the elegant and dancerly strokes. At the end of the gesture, stillness reigned – an inward pose in which the dancers paused for a fraction of a second on glistening, pale light paths. Again and again, they achieved completely authentic drawings only to break out into new movement phrases once more: soft--hard, flowing--frozen, reaching down into the strength of the earth--jumping light as feathers into the clouds, the Ying-Yang principle of Taoism could be found everywhere. And always a new crisis would emerge in which, from a seeming standstill, energy would gather for the next movement. One can best understand the graceful yet powerful movement of the Cloud Gate dancers when one uses the far eastern meditation of Tai-chi as a lens: the way breathing in is a lesson in life force, and a conscious breathing out meets with clear movement. This may sound prim, but is of a beauty that brings you to your knees. The inner flow of the breath can almost be seen in the entire body of these unbelievable dancers. One sees the form of the breath as it flows through the spine to the toes and fingers.

--Hannover Allgemeine Zeitun

One could hold it against Lin that his dances are always almost too beautiful, almost ornamental. But if ever there was a choreographer that stood against cheap surface commitment and understands how to dedicate oneself to beauty, then that person is Lin Hwai-min. In the bodies of his dancers, flesh and spirit melt together, inextricably woven together in their gestures. Both flesh and spirit are lifted up and appear only as immaterial reflexes in a transcendental power. This knowledge and ability lifts Lin above many of his contemporaries.

--Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Inspiring body language from Taiwan.....The group from Taiwan has already performed in Wiesbaden twice before at the May Festival and this time, once again, they were enthusiastically celebrated by the audience. Yet again, they surprised with richly innovative and compellingly scenic action. . . . The result: a dance evening of a special class.

--Wiesbadener Kurier

Under exquisite lighting, most of them in single rectangular concentrated light on the stage floor, the ensemble achieves wonderful pictures.....In combination with the set design, a meditative atmosphere is created within the audience that is at times only broken by a percussive eruption or an accelerated movement. The audience in Wiesbaden was fascinated. Ten minutes of ovation.

--Frankfurter Rundschau

Sublime, ongoing stage poetry.

--Chicago Tribune

It was ravishing! Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan offered masterly dance art from Asia at its sold-out performance at the Kraftwerk in Autostadt.....The Movimentos festival audience simply did not want to stop clapping.....The choreography struck the audience with its aesthetic, tenderness and beauty.....And for so much perfection, the Taiwanese received thunderous applause.

--Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung

Amazed like Marco Polo had been before us, we show respect to a dance art that is founded on eons of philosophy. There was long, long applause from the western shores. And its sound could even be heard long after the show.

--Thuringischen Landeszeitung