Taiwan’s renowned Cloud Gate Dance Theater will be giving three outdoor performances of its production “Rice” for free in Taiwanese cities later this month.
The performances will be held at the main plaza of the National Theater Concert Hall in Taipei on July 18, at the outdoor plaza of the Kaohsiung Cultural Center in southern Taiwan on july 25, and at the Meiun athletics field in eastern Taiwan's Hualien County on Aug. 1.
All three performances will start at 7:30 p.m.
"Rice," which premiered in 2013 as commemoration of Cloud Gate's 40th founding anniversary, showcases the life cycle of rice as a metaphor for the highs and lows that occur in a person's life.
The shows are financed by Cathay Financial Holdings, which has previously provided funding for Cloud Gate to give more than 50 performances for free in over 20 cities and towns across Taiwan since 1996. The performances are highly received in the country, with audiences attending each show numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
The cooperation between the two organizations began in 1995 when Tsai Hong-tu, chairman of Cathay Financial Holdings, made a phone call to Cloud Gate founder and artistic director Lin Hwai-min and expressed interest in cooperating with the dance troupe, Lin said in an interview earlier this month.
Founded in 1973, Cloud Gate has been described as "Asia's leading contemporary dance theatre" by U.K. newspaper the Times of London. Its production "Moon Water" was recently chosen by the New York Times as the best dance of 2003.