Choreographing a flexible Taiwan: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and Taiwan's changing identity, 1973--2003

This dissertation focuses on Cloud Gate Dance Theatre's repertoire in relation to the changing status of Taiwan over the past three decades. It is not meant to be a complete study of the company nor its artistic director Lin Hwai-min's body of work, but a selection of the more significant pieces that address complex issues of identity politics.; The first chapter provides an overview of the beginnings of modern dance in Taiwan. Entangled with the modernist trend introduced via colonial Japan, is the cultural heritage from China. I discuss issues of ethnicity and Chineseness, and how the cultural policy in the early years when the Chinese Nationalist Party took over Taiwan emphasized their legitimacy as the torch bearer of Chinese culture and heritage. I analyze Cloud Gate's Tale of the White Serpent (1975) and unravel its dual elements from the Martha Graham modern dance influence and Chinese opera.; The second chapter marks a transition in the emergence of Taiwanese consciousness in the 1970s, a time when many former international allies start to recognize the People's Republic of China. With the rise of the hsiang-tu (or nativist) literary movement in Taiwan, Cloud Gate's Legacy (1978) was also created within this milieu. I bring in the discussion of diaspora here to complicate the issue of nationalism in Taiwan during the late seventies.; The third chapter discusses Cloud Gate dances choreographed in the 1980s, a time when the society in Taiwan was going through a rapid transition into urbanization. By comparing the three different versions of the classic The Rite of Spring, I contrast how Lin's own version created in 1984 commented upon the original version by Russian dance legend Vaslav Nijinsky and Pina Bausch of Germany. The second half of this chapter then looks at My Nostalgia, My Songs (1986) by Lin, which also borrowed from the tanztheatre techniques of Pina Bausch, but expands on this approach by critiquing issues of class in addition to Bausch's gender discourse.; The fourth chapter looks at the latest stage of Cloud Gate's dances influenced by the study of taichi and other Chinese martial arts practices. Starting with Moon Water (1998) and followed by the Chinese calligraphy inspired Cursive series (2001 and 2003), Lin attempts to revamp the aesthetics of modern dance. Based on my fieldwork with Cloud Gate, I interweave related issues of cultural diplomacy and the political economy of touring. In this age of globalization, where there is a constant struggle to search for one's identity within the global/local or modern/traditional binaries, Cloud Gate presents a model that is controversial yet sophisticated, enabling us to continue to be amazed at the theoretical power of the moving body.