Renowned Taiwanese choreographer Lin Hwai-min talks to Edmund Lee about his move away from writing, his classic Songs of the Wanderers, and the taxi drivers in Taipei.
 

It all began under a Bodhi Tree in Boddhgaya, a small village in Bihar, India. Lin Hwai-min was meditating in the shade, eyes closed, during his first pilgrimage there in the early 1990s, when, for a moment, he felt a sensation on his forehead: it was very warm, almost burning. Lin slowly opened his eyes, and realized that it was a sunray penetrating through the branches of the tree, landing on him. “It was very touching,” he recalls over the phone at his Taipei studios, still with apparent relish. “I experienced such a strong sense of peacefulness for the first time in my life. When I came home, I started working and the work just flowed out without thinking.”

That work would become Songs of the Wanderers, the 1994 masterpiece by Lin, now 63, and one of the most iconic works in the repertoire of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre – the contemporary dance company that Lin founded in 1973, and a first in the Chinese-speaking world. This fortnight, along with the new Whisper of Flowers, the company is returning to the Hong Kong stage with the classic piece 15 years after its premiere here – to a bewildered audience. “I think at that time the audience had an odd response,” Lin says of the 1995 performance at the Cultural Centre, “because all of a sudden Cloud Gate are not doing big movement. They are so quiet and move [so] slowly, and the [viewers] don’t get a clue, I think. It proved to be the most puzzled audience throughout the history of this performance.”

The world-renowned choreographer laughs, acknowledging that his works have since become more polished, and the Hong Kong audience more sophisticated. At one point, he politely apologizes that he is being “hyper”, as I have caught him between rehearsals; at another, he exclaims “Bach! Bach! Bach!” while relating his creative influence for Whisper of Flowers, and jokes that “Mr. Johann Sebastian Bach has immigrated to Taiwan and has been living in my living room for more than twenty years.” One gets the feeling that’s just exactly how enthusiastic Lin is about his craft. All those, and we haven’t even mentioned that Lin has already been an acclaimed writer before installing himself as one of the most significant choreographers working today.

Turns out it’s hardly worth mentioning these days. “Well, I started as a writer, and I am enriched by that experience,” reflects Lin on his dual profession, “but it turns out that literal thinking is an obstacle to achieving the ultimate power of pure things.” That, says Lin, is precisely why he turned from the dance-theatre adaptations of folklores, classical literature and Beijing operas in his early days to the abstract, pure-dance pieces that characterize his later career. “The reason I started with the more narrative form is also because we’re absorbed in Beijing opera and other forms of opera in those early years. But all the way, I knew that the strongest expression of dance is through movement.”

Ironically, movement takes a backseat in Songs of the Wanderers, which Lin considers his favourite and one that he, “if lucky enough”, would like “to be preserved when he’s gone”. Inspired by Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, itself inspired by the story of the Buddha, Lin has also incorporated the imagery of sadhus (the wanderers in Hindu culture) into what the choreographer describes as “a very strange piece”. “It has music from Georgia, and an Indian story, and three-and-a-half tons of Taiwanese rice,” he says. “The content of it are actually different practices of ritual through which people attempt a certain kind of peacefulness or redemption.” Physical stillness and peace of mind takes an inspired form as a monk stands motionless throughout the 90-minute performance, as a stream of golden rice grain continually rains on him. “People in different countries cry over [this performance]. In the very beginning, it’s totally unexpected.” He then deadpans, “I think everyone wants a good cry, but there isn’t a right moment to do it.”

Lin goes on to talk about the transformation that ultimately earned him an international reputation. “It took me about 20 years to erase the words in my mind that I’ve accumulated as a writer. Now, I choreograph as a dancer in a dancer’s body. I think it’s wonderful because a dancer no longer has to serve a role, [whether it’s a character] in [Legend of the] White Serpent or Dream of the Red Chamber. They’re just doing the movement; they’re just being themselves.” What about his expertise as a writer? “Nowadays, I cannot write,” Lin says. “Whenever I want to sit down and write a short article – which I am obliged to – I cannot find words. A short article, [of] say 1,000 words, would take about two weeks.”

However, that alienating distance from words has by no means dampened Lin’s passion in adapting literary classics – even if the choreographer does often abandon the original storylines and characters altogether. Such is the case of Whisper of Flowers, an extension to his previous work, Moon Water, and a commissioned piece for the Chekhov International Theatre Festival on the occasion of the great Russian playwright’s 150th anniversary. “The most wonderful thing about this work is [that] I carry the style of Chekhov, who always speaks between the lines,” offers Lin, who has himself drawn inspiration from – and parallels between – both Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and the Chinese classic, Dream of the Red Chamber. “Both are about the fall of a family,” Lin observes. “I didn’t try to interpret Chekhov, but I just take off from that point.”

Speaking on his legacy, Lin is at once filled with enthusiasm and humility. How does the man see his own achievement? “O-oh, I don’t think about this. I am a worker despite the reputation, despite that almost 99% of the taxi drivers know me and want to chat with me. And legacy… I don’t know. Life, as Buddhism says, is illusory. I think things vanish when they happen. All you have is this instance.” So will Lin keep on creating as much as he can? “Yeah, sure, until I drop dead,” he says, laughing. “Because I won’t want to get up tomorrow morning unless it’s a bright new day.”

Whisper of Flowers is performed on Wed 4 and Thu 5, and Songs of the Wanderers on Sat 7 and Sun 8, at Cultural Centre’s Grand Theatre. Tickets: 2734 9009; www.urbtix.hk.