A native of Taiwan, Lin Hwai-min first became interested in dance watching the film The Red Shoes. Encouraged by his parents to follow more academic pursuits, he studied writing and published two best-selling novels by age 22. Prior to founding Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan in 1973, he studied Chinese opera movement in Taiwan, modern dance in New York and classical court dance in Japan and Korea. Over the years, through his work for Cloud Gate, Lin has developed an original dance language evolved from Chinese opera, martial art, meditation, Tai Chi, modern dance, and ballet. His choreographies for Cloud Gate have been raved throughout Europe, the U.S. and Asia. Lin has received many awards and honors, including being named Choreographer of the 20th Century by Dance Europe magazine and the 1999 Ramon Magsaysay Award in Journalism, Literature, and Creative Arts, considered one of the highest honors in Asia.
The Joyce Award supported The Dance Center’s commissioning of Lin to create Cursive III, the conclusion of his trilogy influenced by Chinese calligraphy. Cursive III used movement to explore “Wild Calligraphy,” which is considered the highest form of Chinese cursive aesthetics and reveals the spiritual state of the writer.