At Legend Lin Dance Theatre, this is how they train the dancers to develop a visceral feel for the connection between body movement and the beating of the drums, so that they can truly liberate their bodies. Few find it easy upon first joining the troupe to truly concentrate on the sound of the drums or move their bodies with total abandon.

Most dance troupes bring out a new repertoire piece every year or two to hold the attention of dance aficionados, but in its 14 years Legend Lin has only come out with two performances of 120 minutes each-Mirrors of Life and Anthem to the Fading Flowers. The two works are a complementary pair of yin and yang, one a show of the slow, one a place of space. Each is a performance of eye-opening power, rooted in local culture yet sending out impact waves across the globe.

Several rays of faint light shine down upon a group of dancers who are sitting in a circle on a dance stage chanting the Heart Sutra. This is a purification ritual, and the opening act of Mirrors of Life. With devotion, the dancers cleanse the venue. Their soft chanting gradually brings calm to the distracted minds of the audience.

Devoutness and compassion

After the purification ritual ends, 12 strikes on a bass gong herald the transition to the remaining 11 acts of the performance. Dappled in candlelight and illuminated by a big Chinese lantern, a dancer with joss sticks in hand playing the part of Mazu, goddess of the sea, writhes ever so slowly forward, like a movie in slow motion. It is a dance of thanksgiving to the gods for a year of favorable weather and prosperity.

To achieve the effect of piety moving through molasses, the dancer bends deep at the knees while keeping the upper body erect and leaning forward. All the dancer's power is concentrated in the lower body, while the spine provides the lead for the movements of the torso and legs. The dancer looks as light as a dragonfly, but in fact must work hard to control the muscle groups that give expression to time standing nearly still. In the fourth act, the dancers create a silent, mysterious space as they accompany the soulful chant of Cai Xiaoyue, a master nanguan musician.

In act five, a topless female dancer applies lipstick with mirror in hand, symbolizing yin, the netherworld. In the meantime, a group of female dancers wrap her in a bridal gown. Waving shocks of silvergrass, men painted completely in red and symbolizing the land of the quick walk slowly toward the woman. The story at first is one of love between woman and man, a harmonious commingling of the yin and yang, but this gives way all at once; stomping to a strong, swift beat, the performers tell a tale of hateful contention. Several sets of fierce-looking hunters wielding sharp blades act out a struggle of life and death.

Mirrors of Life is based on popular midsummer rituals commemorating notorious ethnic feuding that racked Taiwan throughout much of the 18th and 19th centuries. The story draws connections between the netherworld and the land of the living, and builds unseen bridges between life and death, good and evil, man and beast, wrongdoing and redemption. The 12 acts of the performance represent the 12 sections of the day in the traditional Chinese timekeeping system. In the end, a huge bonfire is lit in the middle of the stage and water lanterns are released, scattering to the four winds all the evil deeds and hatred of the past and present.

Physical conditioning as practiced by Legend Lin is for the purpose of finding one's original body, and emphasizes the power of the central axis (the spine). The dancers loosen up, twist around, build up the strength of the axis, and in the process discover the flow of the qi.

Art takes time to mature

With its mixture of dance, nanguan classical music, popular ritual, and historical fact, Mirrors of Life is hugely famous in Europe. In Spain and France, in particular, Legend Lin far outstrips the fame of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and ranks as the number-one representative of Taiwan's modern performing arts. At home in Taiwan, however, it is not so well known, for it might just not take to the stage even once in a year at the National Theater, and it stays extremely busy overseas.

"It takes us a half year to prepare for each performance, so we can put on no more than two performances in a year." So explains the creator of Mirrors of Life and winner of a National Award for the Arts in 2005, Lin Li-chen, as she sits on the tatami in her graceful, high-ceiling apartment located on a narrow lane in the Taipei suburb of Yonghe.

"A dance piece is like a newborn child. It needs tender loving care to grow and thrive." She points out that it takes a lot of time to roll out a new dance piece. Both the dancers and the choreographer have to digest the work and make continual adjustments in order to gradually come up with a truly pleasing work of art. "The works of a lot of local troupes in Taiwan simply wither away right after they're born for lack of nourishment. It's really too bad, but such things happen all the time because performance troupes are always under pressure to go public with something new."

Even a fully mature piece varies from one performance to the next due to different stage sizes, and different audience reactions. In Lyon, France, for example, the stage in the opera house was 25 meters deep-much larger than in most other opera houses-and semicircular in shape. Preparing for the unique space added greatly to the difficulty of rehearsals at Huashan Arts Center. Rehearsing the fourth act took fully twice the normal time. "Imagine redoing a painting on a canvas of a different size from the original. You have to make adjustments."

Foreign critics describe Mirrors of Life as a propitiatory poem of reverence for heaven and earth that serves at the same time as a type of ritual. It is considered the pioneer of Taiwan's "ritual theater." Shown at right is a poster, and above is a scene from the final act of Mirrors of Life being performed in Spain. Ghost money is burned on stage, which is quite a difficult technical feat to pull off.

Digging deep into local memory

Before going public with Mirrors of Life, Lin had already earned a reputation as one of the leading lights among choreographers in Taiwan on the strength of such works as Don't Forget Your Umbrella, Heaven Asks, and The Roc and I, but withdrew from dancing for seven years to attend to her husband and children. After returning, she came to see that dancers from East Asia performing ballet or modern dance were simply "so much duckweed" caught up in the great deluge of Western culture. She began to feel that dancers from Taiwan ought to embrace their local roots. Dipping into her personal store of memories and emotions connected with traditional rituals, she choreographed Horizon, tapping into many elements that form part of the collective consciousness of the people of Taiwan.

To create Horizon, Lin spent a lot of time collecting materials. In the process, she began to perceive that local Taiwanese traditions might soon fall into oblivion for lack of transmission, so she and some cohorts began carrying out ethnological field surveys and assembling information on temple festivals and rituals. This would become the basis for Mirrors of Life.

"When I was a kid and we'd celebrate the midsummer festival, my mom would ask us to set out a washbasin, towel, toothbrush, toothmug, mirror, makeup, and amaranth flowers." And her mother would always solemnly remind the kids to place the mirror and makeup just right so that the wandering ghosts from the netherworld would be able to make themselves up properly. This respectful and compassionate attitude toward all sentient beings shows through in the fifth act when the female dancer, after looking at herself in the mirror, can't bring herself to put the mirror down, just like people after dying can't turn their back on the living, and so remain trapped in the cycle of death and reincarnation, rather than achieving nirvana.

Founded 14 years ago, Legend Lin Dance Theatre has gained worldwide fame for its Mirrors of Life and Anthem to the Fading Flowers. Moving at an extremely slow pace, the dancers depict the growth of vegetation and the limitless power of life nurtured in the roiling primordial chaos of existence.

Pure and unblemished

In Mirrors on Life, Lin Li-chen uses a variety of props to tell the story. When stranded ghosts are being guided out of the netherworld, for example, the troupe comes out with antiques that have actually been used in the past in the real-life midsummer rituals being depicted on stage. A century-old piece of embroidery originally used in propitiatory rites is used in the dance as the fabric that gets wrapped around the soldiers' waists and the women dancers, symbolizing both the fetal membranes of a newborn baby as well as the death shroud in which the dying are wrapped. And the spirit money burned at the end of the performance is filled with verses from the Heart Sutra, which are used in helping wandering ghosts find their way out of the netherworld.

"Pretty much every single prop we use has been with us for 15 years," says Lin, who explains that all the troupe members take extremely good care of the props; whenever they spot a tear, they immediately whip out needle and thread to mend it.

Lin decided to create Mirrors of Life in order to take Taiwan's religious ritual and preserve it in dance. The resulting work not only proved deeply moving to the local Taiwanese, but has also been a big hit with overseas audiences. Legend Lin Dance Theatre was only established after the sensation caused by Mirrors of Life upon its introduction in 1995, so that the cast would have a regular place to practice.

Putting on costumes and makeup is always a time-consuming process for Legend Lin. Dancers use the time to start getting into their roles, and some of them come to tears long before the performance has even gotten underway.

Anthem to the Fading Flowers

If Mirrors of Life is about bringing solace to the spirits of the departed, then Anthem to the Fading Flowers, introduced in 2000, is a tale of life, or the waxing and waning thereof.

On a dark and deserted stage, a single beam of light falls upon a pair of naked dancers, one male and one female. They perform with their eyes closed the whole time, because they are plants. Slowly, ever so slowly, they draw nearer to each other, intertwining at times, their skin fairly overlapping. For the audience, it's like watching trees grow in a series of time-lapse images. This is what the dancers are interpreting in the first act of Anthem to the Fading Flowers.

The second act is all about the primal urges of the wild beast. The god of summer beats powerfully on bamboo clappers, awakening the restless desires lurking in the human heart. The god of summer removes his mask and morphs into a woman. Donning the clothing of a beast, facing the slaughter of hunters, she lets loose with a full-throated roar while having orgiastic sex before a brilliant red stage backdrop. The dancer is still in slow motion, but now each movement concludes with a forceful snap. The many dance moves modeled after the ways of wild animals fill the stage with the tension of a fierce struggle for survival.

In the third act, the dancer changes from a sprightly young lass into a shuffling old lady. She is accompanied by two traditional music instruments (the bawu and the bass gong) and the chanting of Lin Li-chen. As changing scenery drifts slowly by, plants wither inexorably away. Then white snow falls upon dismal yellow clay in the fourth act, and even though pipa lutes and xiao flutes sing out one last, great hurrah for the forces of life, nothing can prevent the wheel of life from coming full circle.

It isn't possible, as Lin would like, for Anthem to the Fading Flowers to be performed in the great outdoors, but dance cognoscenti, theaters, and the news media alike all give rave reviews for the beautiful structure and meticulous physical aesthetics of the work. Guy Darmet, artistic director of the Lyon Dance Biennial, was gushing in his praise: "Every motion in this dance takes your breath away."

Due to the success of Mirrors of Life, the major arts festivals in Europe were all eager to book Anthem to the Fading Flowers even while the work was still in the early formative stages. Indeed, Anthem set a record for ticket sales at the Madrid Summer City Festival. Six years ago, when the European television channel ARTE selected eight choreographers and their works for inclusion in a program seen by 100,000 viewers, Lin Li-chen's Anthem for Fading Flowers was the only entry from Asia.

The works of Legend Lin are deeply imbued with a reverence for life. The troupe has fond hopes of one day performing in the great outdoors. Shown here is a scene from act five of Mirrors of Life.

Anchored, silent, relaxed, heavy, slow

Watching a Legend Lin performance is like looking at animation images-each image can be viewed as a still, but taken in series, there is actually motion to be observed. The dancers slow down their movements, now coiling their limited torsos, now opening up. Every single second is an artistic masterpiece in its own right. They call it "the aesthetics of space and pace."

"Up on stage, the only things I have to work with are space and pace." Lin is minimalist with props and scenery, so as to keep the stage uncluttered. She likes to leave space unfilled, just like in traditional Chinese inkwash paintings, so the audience can concentrate on the dance itself, and on the relationship between movement and space. And to give expression to the texture of the dance movements, the dancers perform naked, dressed only in body paint.

"Only slow movement makes it possible to feel currents of air moving over a dancer's body." In Lin's view, flashy movement simply draws attention to the virtuosity of the dancer, while leading the audience to overlook the dancer's emotions and the complete image being depicted on the stage. She stresses that "slowness enables the dancer to grow both physically and mentally throughout the course of the dance, and incorporate ever finer detail into each movement; even in the simple act of walking, the foot must feel emotion, and make the audience feel its weight and warmth.

Lin has a purification process for training her dancers in slowness: dancers must learn to be "anchored, silent, relaxed, heavy, slow." Before her dancers begin practicing, she has them sit and meditate on being anchored, then quiet, so that that a connection is established between their bodies and the surface of the floor, as if their bodies were sending roots into the earth.

"Any dance movement starts from the dantian [a few inches below the navel] and the coccyx, and cycles from there to all the muscles. From the place where the ground meets the flesh, you describe concentric circles, concentric circles, steadily radiating power." In directing her dancers, Lin never fails to remind them: "The coccyx always resides on the ground. It's a support point." With every spin and twist, she repeats: "Do not exert force in the arms or shoulders. The only thing left is the spine. Nothing else exists."

In her view, complete relaxation is the only way to be limber and move with grace; each dancer must thoroughly understand his or her own body, "start slow before accelerating, and then gradually decelerate to balance tension and laxness. Then you can gradually make the vocabulary of the body return to the most primal, the most pure 'body prototype.'"

Anthem to the Fading Flowers, which premiered nine years ago, won the top prize at the Lyon Dance Biennial. Shown here is the opening sequence of the dance, in which the god of spring takes to the stage. Numerous props recreate the beauty of ancient Chinese painting.

Emptiness, union, flow

"Each dancer's body is in different condition, and has its own structure. You can't ask everyone to conform to a single standard." The concepts behind Legend Lin's training method are diametrically opposed to those of Western ballet, which emphasizes technical virtuosity and strives for perfection of form.

When the troupe engaged in an exchange with the Beijing Dance Academy, Lin only demonstrated "sitting" and "standing." Moving softly and slowly, she gradually crouched down and got back up, using her limbs to send out the force and power from her body in ever expanding "shock waves."

"Sitting down and standing up take just two musical beats, but as I see them, they take 64 beats." When the Beijing students practiced under Lin's guidance, by the third time through the routine some of them were moved nearly to tears as they gradually began to feel the emotional rush of the fusion between body, sky, and earth.

In each practice session at Legend Lin, the dancers empty their mind of distractions and let their bodies mingle with emotions, the story, and space, so their rehearsals cannot be interrupted. "If you make a mistake, you just have to keep going with it all the way to the end." At rehearsals there are always reporters who ask them to stop so they can take a photo, but Lin stresses that they "just can't do that."

"A good performance piques the audience's imagination. It doesn't just give them an answer." It is not just the dancers who need to clear their minds of distraction; Lin would also like to see the audience do likewise, and simply watch the dance without harboring any preconceived notions or moods, so that they can settle into the onstage world. She actually encourages people to study dance from an early age to give their emotions an outlet.

"The pace of life in today's world is too fast. We have no way of achieving a visceral understanding of the flow of emotions." A man walks quickly, for example, only to reach a destination, and does not pay attention to the beautiful scenery around him. His inner world has no scenery, connects with nothing. In fact, he lacks all self-awareness. It's all very puzzling to Lin, who questions whether we really need such a fast-paced existence. Everybody rushes about to keep up with the tick of our times, but why rush? Even if you do keep up, so what?

Founded 14 years ago, Legend Lin Dance Theatre has gained worldwide fame for its Mirrors of Life and Anthem to the Fading Flowers. Moving at an extremely slow pace, the dancers depict the growth of vegetation and the limitless power of life nurtured in the roiling primordial chaos of existence.

New work in the making

In Mirrors of Life and Anthem for Fading Flowers, Legend Lin has created a pair of works that represent the yin and yang, respectively. From Lin's perspective, these two complementary pieces together tell a complete story. In December of this year, at the behest of the National Theater, Legend Lin will be introducing a new work (called GUAN in Chinese; English title not yet decided). It will be just the third piece in the troupe's repertoire after 15 years.

"I want to get back to the theme of caring about humans and nature." The work revolves around a hawk that looks down upon a mysterious river and all the different denizens that populate its upper, middle, and lower reaches. It's a story about fusion between different groups. The work is only at the conceptual stage at this point, but all the dancers are practicing somersaults, tumbling, and other gymnastic movements, and it looks like once the new work is melded with "the aesthetics of space and slow pace," we're going to see a very sharp contrast. This is definitely something to look forward to.

When choreographing a dance, Lin Li-chen becomes totally immersed in her work, to the point where it is hard to say exactly what sort of energy she is running on. But under ordinary circumstances she's extremely easygoing, and treats everyone in the troupe just like family.

Themes from Taiwan's indigenous cultures are an important element in Lin Li-chen's choreography. She feels that the unvarnished emotional directness of the indigenous peoples gives powerful expression to the primeval emotions of the many forms of life in the universe. Shown here is a scene from act eight of Mirrors of Life.

Founded 14 years ago, Legend Lin Dance Theatre has gained worldwide fame for its Mirrors of Life and Anthem to the Fading Flowers. Moving at an extremely slow pace, the dancers depict the growth of vegetation and the limitless power of life nurtured in the roiling primordial chaos of existence.

Foreign critics describe Mirrors of Life as a propitiatory poem of reverence for heaven and earth that serves at the same time as a type of ritual. It is considered the pioneer of Taiwan's "ritual theater." Shown at right is a poster, and above is a scene from the final act of Mirrors of Life being performed in Spain. Ghost money is burned on stage, which is quite a difficult technical feat to pull off.