Nine Songs

One of the most important dance works of our time . . . audience celebrates the ensemble with overwhelming ovations.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany

The biggest surprise to us is, however, how successfully Lin Hwai-min and his ensemble have harmoniously blended Oriental and Occidental forms of artistic expression. Nine Songs is a perfect example of how, without losing one’s ethnic roots, Orient and Occident can be combined – almost like a Utopian prediction of East and West finally brought together.
Stuttgarter Zeitung

A work of epic resonance and contemporary relevance…

The lotus is a symbol of rebirth in Asia, and water is a symbol of purification and nature in “Nine Songs,” which wends through the river of life on its own theatrically imaginative terms. From these basic images and a 2,000-year-old poem by Qu Yuan, one of China’s great poets, Mr. Lin has choreographed a striking pictorial spectacle. The effect is that of a huge Chinese scroll in which movement fills in the unfurling landscape with a series of economical brush strokes.

The two-hour piece is both poetic in its meditative beauty and occasionally exasperating in its very richness… an eye-filling and thought-provoking spectacle.
The New York Times

Lin Hwai-min’s choreography is not based on the principles of collage, of fragmentation, and of other post-modernist tropes. Rather, Lin Hwai-min is exploding the categories and morphing into a new body. East with East, West with West, West and East, thus creating a new aesthetic for a nomadic, politicized moving body; he is transgressing the idea of boundaries proper, in order to create an extra-ordinary proposal for a post-colonial, intercultural gestus and trajectory for the dancing body.      

As this strange ritual evolves, the audience is increasingly drawn into the hypnotic intensity of the dance, to its supernatural perfection. It is almost too much, too intense, too well done, too clean visually. And then comes the disruptive moment that abruptly brings us back into the West, into the theatre, into ourselves, creatures of post-coloniality…  
Ballet International

He seduces the senses with his intoxicating fusion of East and West, past and present – some startling images including modern-day figures on bikes – the primitive and the cerebral.

Ancient poet Qu Yuan and the cultures of Asia may have been Lin’s inspiration, but Nine Songs goes to the kernel of mankind, with its seeds of destruction as well as hope.

This brilliant new full-length work will take the modern dance world by storm. It will also elevate Lin Hwai-min, unchallenged giant in Asia, to the ultimate level occupied by only a tiny handful including his early mentors, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham: one of the greats of the 20th century. 
South China Morning Post

Nine Songs

Choreography
LIN Hwai-min

Music
Indigenous music of Taiwan
Traditional music of Asia
Percussion score  Ju Percussion Group

Narrator
CHIANG Hsun, KUO Yuan-hsien, LEE Ji, and Walis NOGANG

Set Design
Ming Cho LEE

Lighting Design               
LIN Keh-hua

Costume Design              
LIN Hwai-min, LO Ruey-chi

Mask Design           
LIN Yen-ling, WANG Yao-chun

Calligraphy           
TONG Yang-tze

Dance Revival         
LEE Ching-chun

Performed by            
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan            

Premiere          
August 10, 1993,Taipei, Taiwan

Recorded
December 1, 2012, Miaoli, Taiwan

Visited venues include   
Opera House, Kennedy Centre, Washington D.C., USA
Next Wave Festival , New York, USA
Lyric Theatre Cerritos Centre, Los Angeles, CA, USA
World Festival, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, New Jersey, USA 
Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, UK
Chekhov International Theatre Festival, Moscow, Russia
Vienna International Dance Festival, Vienna, Austria
Staatsoper, Hamburg, Germany
Forum Theatre, Leverkusen, Germany
Jahrhunderthalle Hoechst, Frankfurt, Germany
Forum am Schlosspark, Ludwigsburg, Germany
Theatre Municipal, Luxembourg 
Hummingbird Center, Toronto, Canada
Theater Festival of Bogotá, Bogota, Colombia
Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, Sydney, Australia
The Edge-Aotea Center, Made To Move Festival, Auckland, New Zealand 
Singapore Festival of Arts, Singapore
Macao Cultural Centre, Macau
Hong Kong Cultural Centre
National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing, China
Hangzhou Grand Theatre, China 
Shanghai Oriental Art Center, China
Guangzhou Opera House, China 
Chongqing Grand Theatre, China