For more than forty years, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, led by founder and choreographer Lin Hwai-min, has celebrated Asian culture and aesthetics - and thrilled audiences - with its inventive blend of Qigong, martial arts, modern dance and ballet.

Legend has it that 16th century Portuguese sailors exclaimed “formosa”, meaning “beautiful” when they first set eyes on the verdant island we now know as Taiwan, rising from the sea off the coast of China. This legend now serves as inspiration for Lin’s latest evening-length work, 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 soundtrack by award-winning indigenous singer Sangpuy, dancers mingle in intimations of community, making tribal ritual and urban bustle seem as one.

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).

Co-producers:
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
Movimentos Festwochen der Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany