Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - August 16th, 1999 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung August 16th, 1999 The shiny haze quietly permeates all of Berlin By Jochen Schmidt A guest-performance that will set the standards for the capital’s ballet: Lin Hwai-min’s “Moon Water” at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin For about two years Graz director Gerhard Brunner has been working on the reorganization of Berlin's ballet scene for the Berlin city senate. More time will pass until the reorganization is completed and can be tested for viability. Still the course of events is already foreseeable. Next November when directorial contracts at State Opera Unter den Linden - that is the succession to Daniel Barenboim - will become available the last juridical cornerstones for a holding of the three Berlin opera ballet companies shall be set up. Already, at the beginning of October the first of the new ballet directors, British Richard Wherlock, will present his adapted Berlin version of "La Fille Mal Gardée" at Komische Oper. In April 2000 the Deutsche Oper will see the première of full-length ballet "The Park" by director designate Angelin Preljocaj that already met with great success when performed in Paris, and in December 2000 Taiwanese Lin Hwai-min shall make a strong statement with a première. Until then at least one will know who will direct the biggest Berlin ballet company housed at the State Opera (Staatsoper) which - one might call such trust rather obstinate - has secured the services of French choreographer Patrice Bart until 2001. It was left to Lin Hwai-min from Taiwan to take BerlinBallett's first artistic step in front of the public. Thus the first dance production shown under the new institution's name was not a première but a guest performance, flown in from halfway around the world: Lin's "Moon Water". Performed by Cloud Gate Dance Theater, which was founded and directed by Lin himself, it was premiered by the same group in November 1998 at the National Theater in Taipei. The piece saw its European première during Berlin festival "Tanz im August" at the Deutsche Oper. It is debatable what to make of this: is it an admitted defeat of the capital's dance culture that it has to adorn itself with borrowed plumes, or rather a proof of the city's cosmopolitan open-mindedness? In this special case the import from the Far East must be regarded as a cultural accomplishment, because Lin Hwai-min's "Moon Water", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - August 16th, 1999 which derives its name from a Buddhist saying about optical illusions and flux of energies, is stunningly beautiful. This Chinese dance theater is not unrelated to Germany. Lin and his Cloud Gate dancers started their rehearsals for "Moon Water" last summer while spending time in Munich between two engagements in Munich and Vienna. And the choreographer chose German music as the basis of the seventy-minute piece: a handful of movements, mostly sarabandes, from Bach's suites for solo cello. They were performed by Russian Mischa Maisky and played from CD at the Deutsche Oper - thus the optical impressions weren't impaired by a performing musician. It was an ingenious choreographic idea; to combine this dispassionate and austere music with the movements of Tai-Chi, the Far Eastern school of martial arts. Tai Chi is also a widely spread form of physical exercise; travelers to Asia often encounter Tai-Chi practitioners of all ages in the early morning hours wherever they go, in the parks of cities or in the villages. Lin however does not employ ordinary Tai-Chi but a modified version that has been developed for the Cloud Gate company as a form of art and special dance style by master Hsiung Wei, who has been training the troupe for years. In "Moon Water" it merges with Bach's music in an almost perfect manner. And when, as right before the finale, the movement continues between two musical figures, the inner ear carries the impression of hearing Bach's music. The audience views a great, quasi-religious purification ritual in slow-motion movements. Of course, Lin does without an anecdotal plot; dramatics result from movement only - fast hits, surprising falls that break the prevailing calm. Relations between the groups and couples are of an almost loving tenderness, culminating in a pivotal double pas de deux which isn’t easily matched in choreographic quality anywhere in contemporary dance, but finds its equivalents within the performance, as in the following marvelous woman’s solo. Since its première in Taipei this black and white piece, a Far Eastern counterpart to the white acts of classical Western ballet, has even gained in intensity. Any irregularities have given way to refinement. During the three-day guest-performance in Berlin the seventeen Cloud Gate dancers, evenly clad by Lin Jung-ru in long white pajamas (the eight women also wear skin colored tops) present themselves in impressive form. Not in the least wavering, with not the slightest uncertainty; the idea of an energy pervading and seemingly dematerializing the body is realized in a perfect way. Virtually every detail of the choreography – solos, small groups or troupe – possesses a quality of their very own. But the visual impression reaches a climax during the finale, when the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - August 16th, 1999 combination of bodies, music, water, stage (Austin Wang) and light (Chang Tsan-tao) creates a magical room that unfolds a poetry of its own. Even during the slow-motion exit of the dancers, the piece spreads its great inner peace to the audience. For BerlinBallett this guest performance by Taipei-based Cloud Gate Dance Theatre presenting Lin Hwai-min’s “Moon Water” was more than an ordinary prelude. Their performance will serve as the institution’s benchmark to be artistically matched. To keep up with a standard thus set will not be easy. To exceed it is almost impossible. .