Performance: Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan in Nine Songs

Aotea Centre

Review: Bernadette Rae

Choreographer Lin Hwai-min has reached back more than 5000 years for some of the ritual and richness, poetry and music that perfumes this splendid and exotic performance of contemporary dance. And he manages to merge Eastern and Western dancing styles as effortlessly as he travels through time.

The performance begins minutes before the curtain is raised, when the glorious lotus pond, which occupies the length of the orchestra pit, is illuminated.

The legend of the lotus, symbolic of the four seasons and man's passage through birth, adulthood, old age, death and rebirth, dominates the first half. But this is no slow and Zen-like journey. Sensuous and exploding with life, the 22-strong company writhe and undulate, quiver and quail their way through three sinuous pieces that greet and pay homage to the Sun God and the Gods of Fate.

It is a total celebration of the forces and the laws of nature, no punches pulled and no holds barred. It owes as much to the images of India, its erotic temple carvings in particular, as it does to Chinese heritage.

Against this riotous poetry, an oddly contained and separate figure, in a dark suit and carrying bulky luggage, occasionally passes - to remind us not to forget our allegiance to the lotus' laws.

After the interval, the homages become more specific. In the exquisite Homage to the Goddess of the Xiang River, dancer Wang Chiang-mei seems to cast off her humanity completely to become that deity, as does the lithe Tsai Hui-chen, as the Mountain Spirit. Three men perform a prolonged and profound feat of strength and balance to the God of the Clouds and then politics takes a moving turn.

It is back to the poetry for the sparkling, candlelit finale.

The staging is gorgeous beyond description, a few splendid masks supplement costumes that are mostly brief and the music is a rich and musky combination of Chinese tradition, Tibetan Buddhist Chant and percussion.

Mmmmm. Total seduction of the spirit.