Chishang is the most famous rice town in Taiwan.
When you arrive there, you will see hundred acres of rice field, waving and rolling.
{Founder of Cloud Gate Dance Theater/ Lin Hwai-min} Chishang farmers are proud of their rice.
There is no wire pole standing in the rice field.
{"Rice" Performance/ Chishang, Taidong, Taiwan} It is hard to describe my touched feeling.
I want to choreograph a dance.
In order for them to understand and full in love into.
Actually, the period when rice grow, pollinate, and harvest
it is just like human life.
I want to awaken the mother earth in the "Soil" performance.
{"Rice/ Sun Light"} The performance goes beyond its literal meaning and actually implies relationship between man and woman.
Lots of double dance, suggesting the act of flirting.
{"Rice/ Pollination"} In this part of the performance, there is a pair of man and woman,
They overlay on one another and never apart.
A lot of people cry.
{"Rice/ Fire"} After harvest, it comes destruction.
Using fire to burn the entire rice field.
The rattans represent the tools for cultivation.
They also look like weapons,
a mediator for affection.
The performance talks about life; there are a lot of harmonies,
conflicts and destructions.
{"Rice/ Water"} In the next season the water comes again, to cultivate the field.
I used to write novels.
I established the Cloud Gate Dance Theater since there was no professional dance group in Taiwan back at that time.
We should have a group, our group,
which it can perform at communities and schools.
So we brought the "Rice" performance right to the field,
and we set up 2000 seats on the terrace.
Almost everyone from the village came to the performance, everyone had a really good experience.
Until now I have to go under cover when I visit Chishang.
Or people will stop their motorbike and ask "when are you coming back again?"
{Cloud Gate Rehearsal Stadium} In 2008, a huge fire burned down the warehouse that we rented for 16 years.
{Cloud Gate Theater/ Danshui} We received over 5000 private donations
that help us to build our home.
This is the first time for Cloud Gate to have its own home.
The theater is like a park, which opens to the general public.
I want to apologize that I cannot greet everyone in a standing posture.
Because I got into a car accident last December, which I got a cone fracture.
Right now I am striving to walk again.
It is always not too late to start again.
Cloud Gate training includes meditation, martial art, and Chi-Gong.
You talk about tabula rasa, you talk about inhalation.
{ "Move the body more, don't relax! Almost there!" }
We are really different from western dance groups.
{ "Good! Again!" }
{ "Make your strength flexible! Yes! bravo!" }
I think my best critique was,
when a middle age woman ran to the back stage and insisted to see me.
She hold me hand and said,
"Mr. Lin, I couldn't understand anything from the beginning.
But I was so touched through the entire performance.
Look the goose pumps are still here."
I think dancing is not about cognition.
I think dancing is about sensation and feeling.
{ "All dancer please come out again." }
We have been through all these, it will be the 45th anniversary next year for the theater.
There are a lot of modern dance groups,
which disappear when the founder passed away.
Yet I don't want the theater to end, even one day when I become too old and passed away
Therefore, I always say the establish of the Cloud Gate Theater is the first step of my retirement.
Everyone can still work here, and make things happen in this piece of architecture.