Terrible. The worst UMS performance I’ve seen in recent memory. While the last half (or perhaps third) of the show was fairly good, the opening was terrible. Had there been an intermission, I’d have left at it.

Is there some pandemic of chronic bronchitis in Ann Arbor? Cough drops, people.

I agree with the last post, WOW. The choreography, the sets, the costumes, the music, the lighting, it all went together perfectly. We witnessed a masterpiece. Bring theses people back.

P.S. You have brought us great modern dance from Japan and now Taiwan, must be some great modern dance in South Korea, too. Probably worth investigasting.

This is the second performance of this type that we have seen at the UMS. And the second one we left before the end. We swore off Asian dance theater. The music (if you can call it that) is awful the motion is random and painfully repetitive. I find it strange that there is so much nonconformity in the dance of an ethnic group that defines the term.

The dance concert was a major disappointment. It must be an acquired taste because I did not get it. There was little beauty, harmony, humor or ingenuity in the performance. Just monotony: from the music, repetitive dance motions, stone faces to total lack of any intimacy! Looking at clouds for an hour would have been more entertaining. We were cheated!

I had the best seat in the house last night. No, I was not sitting next to Ken. I was right behind Mr. Lin and his assistant! Apparently he sits in the audience in all performances and takes notes for dancers to work on the next day and to further polish their performance, even after numerous performances since its premier in Taipei in November 2010. Mr. Lin’s perfectionism is hard to match. (Well, Steve Jobs would smile and approve.)

Cloud Gate dancers are trained 8 hours a day on various forms in western ballet, Chinese opera basics, Tai-Chi, meditations, and more! The combination of all these forms in harmony are the signature of Mr. Lin’s choreography in the Cursive series that won high acclaims internationally. In this piece, Mr. Lin moves it up another notch and drops imitations of calligraphy as well as constraints of all dance forms. No stories, no props, no colors (except many shades of black ink/cloud on the white rice paper/stage/sky), and minimal music in the first half. What’s left is the purity, energy, a piece of mind, and body movement!

Another master piece, indeed.

Cloud Gate performances present ideas or concepts rather than stories or pictures, nor is the choreography or music organized to depict harmonious movements. The feeling of disjointure will be very prominent, especially for first-time viewers, because disjointure is indeed at the very heart of Cloud Gate, history, time and space are non-linear and fluid and subject to sudden silences, disruptions or repetitions.

For those who attended with the wish to leave entertained or refreshed, they would most likely have been disappointed, because Cloud Gate does not provide entertainment in the sense we have become accustomed to-that performances are to be understood instanteneously and effortlessly, creating a high level of interaction between what happens on and off-stage. With Cloud Gate, as with many other modern dance companies, the performances rather ask for open-minded perception and a very high level of thought during and after performances, which is asking a lot (sometimes too much) of audiences who are merely taking a moment out of their busy lives to do something different.

I did not witness this particular performance at Power Center, but have been an avid follower of the group since high school, and for those who were not satisfied with this show but are willing to try more, I highly recommend beginning with Lin’s earlier works such as Songs of the Wanderers and Legacy, dances that depict more tangible storylines or tableaus.