Cloud Gate’s Artist­ic Dir­ect­or, Lin Hwai-min, "suc­ceeds bril­liantly in fus­ing dance tech­niques and the­at­ric­al con­cepts from the East and the West" (New York Times). His cho­reo­graphy is rooted in the myths, folk­lore and aes­thet­ics of Asia and brings age-old be­liefs and stor­ies in­to con­tem­por­ary and uni­ver­sal per­spect­ive.

Like the cho­reo­graph­ies "Songs of the Wan­der­ers" and "Moon Wa­ter", "Bam­boo Dream" takes its in­spir­a­tion from China, but the more var­ied pace and the freer, emo­tion­ally ex­press­ive style is a de­par­ture from the earli­er pieces. The ever­green Chinese bam­boo sur­vives even the most bit­ter of win­ters. Sym­bol­ising in­teg­rity and epi­tom­ising el­eg­ance, it plays a part in many an­cient tales. Lin Hwai-min’s in­spired cho­reo­graphy does not nar­rate a single bam­boo story but draws on many to cre­ate an ab­stract and lyr­ic­al piece of dance theatre.

Per­formed to melod­ies im­pro­vised by Chinese flute play­er Huang Sheng-kai and mu­sic by Arvo Pärt, the cycle of the sea­sons un­folds in a series of scenes fea­tur­ing so­los, duets, tri­os and stun­ning ex­amples of the en­semble-work in which Cloud Gate ex­cels. Groups move not with the pre­cise unity of a corps de bal­let but as an exot­ic and ex­quis­itely co-or­din­ated, many-limbed creature. Aus­tin Wang’s stage design, strik­ingly lit by Chang Tsan-tao, cre­ates an en­chant­ing set­ting for this stu­dio re­cord­ing.

The con­tem­por­ary dance pro­gramme "Bam­boo Dream" is avail­able on DVD to­geth­er with an ex­tens­ive mak­ing-of "Secrets of the Bam­boo Grove".