ABSTRACT
When asked to name some Taiwanese choreographers and dance companies, almost invariably the first to be mentioned is Lin Hwaimin and his Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. In pushing ahead, the new generation of Taiwanese choreographers has brought renewed and pervasive energy to Taiwanese modern dance. Unlike in America and Europe, where modern dance had long proclaimed the worth of each person and heralded the individual, dance in Taiwan featured little experimentation and authoritarian choreographic processes, whereby the choreographer simply instructed the dancers, tended to prevail. The form modern dance takes, has always been questioned and changed or renewed by artists. It is a sign of the self-belief of today’s Taiwanese choreographers, and of today’s Taiwan, that they feel they can combine the foreign with the home-grown to develop a dance for contemporary Taiwan.
