"Cloud Gate has never been so airy and colorful". Lin Huaimin

Bach's "Unaccompanied Cello Suite" played by saxophone, through four-time Grammy Award winner Marcelo. The surround sound field created by Arnez brings the audience into a bright and broad world, where the dancers float, swim, and leap in the undulating waves of music. After four years, Cloud Gate Dance Theater returns to Guangzhou, presenting artistic director Zheng Zonglong’s dazzling new work "Xia".
 
In 2020, Zheng Zonglong took over as the artistic director of Cloud Gate Dance Theater from Lin Hwai-min. He led the dance company to tour major European and American cities such as London, Paris, Chicago, and Washington, and received enthusiastic praise. At the end of the same year, Zheng Zonglong, together with Aku Ham, William Forsyth and other masters, was selected into the "Fifty Famous Contemporary Choreographers" published by the British Roderich Publishing House.
 
Zheng Zonglong makes good use of the diverse training of Cloud Gate dancers, but is not restricted by procedures. He deeply explores the characteristics of each dancer and extracts a dense, smooth, yet unexpected dance. The Washington Post Dance Review wrote, "The aesthetics of Zheng Zonglong's works are fascinating. The dancers combine physical training of qigong, martial arts, modern dance and ballet to form a unique dance vocabulary, which is as strange as a flower spinning."
 
For a period of time, dancers were quarantined at home and could not go to Cloud Gate Theater to rehearse. Zheng Zonglong asked the dancers to improvise in front of the video, expressing their moods through movements, and then transformed the movements of loneliness, anger, helplessness or joy into the pleasant and moving dance "Xia", just like the sun is about to rise, streaking across the sky. Dark sky light. After the premiere, it received rave reviews, and even the audience praised "Cloud Gate has injected a youthful vitality. Different choreographers, different beauty."
 
The image of "Xia" was created by World Theater Design Award winner Zhou Dongyan and animation master Wei Heting. They echoed Bach's music and the dancers' movements to create a colorful and smooth fantasy projection, with the dancers moving through it like a dream. Lin Hwai-min said, "Cloud Gate has never been so lively and colorful."
 
This year coincides with the 50th anniversary of the founding of Cloud Gate Dance Company. Zheng Zonglong presented the beautiful and moving "Xia". "Xia" will be performed twice at the Guangzhou Grand Theater on December 1-2.
 
Zheng Zonglong (Artistic Director and Choreographer of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre)
In 2020, he served as the artistic director of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, and was selected as one of the "Fifty Contemporary Choreographers", alongside masters such as Akham Khan and William Forsyth. The work interweaves street tension with various aspects of life, transforming everyday vocabulary into strong physical bodies. The work has been invited to theaters in the United States and Europe many times. He won the bronze medal in the No Ballet Contemporary Choreography Competition in Germany and the first prize in the MASDANZA Choreography Competition in Spain.