Bulareyaung Pagarlava’s “Passage,” performed by Cloud Gate 2. Photo by Liu Chen-hsiang.
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, the Taiwanese company that has brought its meditative, scenically stunning full-evening works to BAM five times since 1995, is a known quantity on these shores. But Cloud Gate 2, which gives four performances at The Joyce Theater next week, is making its first U.S. appearances in a five-city tour. Don’t let the company’s name confuse you; the “2” does not indicate a mission that is comparable to the second companies maintained by some major American troupes. Those “junior” companies are more compact entities, often performing reduced or excerpted versions of established repertory, designed to tour to more intimate venues that wouldn’t suit the “main” company.
Although both troupes share an artistic director—Cloud Gate founder Lin Hwai-min—Cloud Gate 2 has its own, distinctly different mission and repertory. While the “main” company performs Lin’s own expansive dances, Cloud Gate 2, founded in 1999, showcases a wide variety of young Taiwanese choreographers. At The Joyce, the 18-member company will perform five works by four choreographers. Their musical choices alone—ranging from Meredith Monk to Kachaturian, Xenakis to Michael Gordon—suggest a wide stylistic and aesthetic range will be represented.
“Over the past two decades, there have been more international groups coming to Taiwan. Also, we had more and more upcoming young choreographers emerging. So Cloud Gate 2 is a great platform for them to show what they can do,” said Bulareyaung Pagarlava, whose Passage is on the current program, during a joint interview with fellow choreographer Cheng Tsung-lung last week at the Taipei Cultural Center. (He spoke alternately in English and in Mandarin through a translator.)
Bulareyaung is the only one of the choreographers whose name has some familiarity here, having created two works for the Martha Graham Dance Company and had his work performed at Jacob’s Pillow and the American Dance Festival.
He pointed out that the dances on the program span most of the company’s existence, with his own—created during Cloud Gate 2’s first season—being the oldest. He admits he was surprised that Lin programmed Passage for the tour, since he has contributed five other dances to the repertory over the years and will create a new one in March.
“At first I thought, ‘Why this old piece?’ But when I started working with the dancers, I found something unexpected: that I’m very grateful to work on it again,” he said. “When I made it in 1999, I was young and inexperienced and had only made two previous pieces, for my university graduation. Now, I come with a lot of experience.
“The dancers and I shared a lot; I asked them to share their experiences. I have my own ideas about the movement, but they bring out many different meanings—it’s not just my dance, but theirs, too. I changed the work a lot, developed it further. After 12 years, I found far more in this piece than originally,” Bulareyaung concluded.
Cheng, whose 2009 work The Wall is on the program, succeeded Bulareyaung as resident choreographer, leaving the position in 2010. Before that, he danced with Cloud Gate from 2002-2004, but stopped performing due to a spinal injury. He is currently spending a year in New York City on an Asian Cultural Council Grant, exploring museums, taking classes and checking out the experimental dance scene. “I think all those experiences will come up in my work in the future; this is a year to take it all in,” he said.
Explaining the context in which The Wall was created, he described it as almost a therapeutic project. “At that time, I felt I was stuck in a rut in terms of my creation and my life,” Cheng said. “When I heard the Michael Gordon music, I analyzed every note. I hoped that by analyzing the score, and also by creating this work, I could rationally think through my problems, break out of the low point I was in. The wall of the title is one that exists within the dancers themselves. You will see the walls through the dancers’ bodies, how they interact. They move like they are constrained.”
Both choreographers studied at Taipei National University of the Arts, and they estimate that about 90 percent of the dancers came through that dance program as well. “We have four arts universities in Taiwan, but that is the best dance department,” said Bulareyaung. “We had training in ballet, contemporary dance—Graham, Limon, Cunningham and release technique. Of course we also have Chinese opera as part of the program. I majored in modern dance, but I studied all of those. We’ve been trained very solidly, so when we finish school, we are technically very capable.”
Completing the program that will introduce Cloud Gate 2 to New York are Tantalus by Wu Kuo-chu and Wicked Fish and Tat-Ta for Now, both by Huang Yi.
Cloud Gate 2
Feb. 8, 10, 12, The Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave. (at 19th St.), www.joyce.org; $10+.
