Cloud Gate 2 was formed in 1999 as the junior wing of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, but it comes with a repertory and style that are entirely distinct. While there are moments on stage when the dancers can rival the miraculous, liquid grace of the senior troupe, they also move with a vehement, low-slung, contemporary edge – Taiwan by way of Belgium.
This UK visit is the company’s first, and given the quality of its performers I hope it won’t be the last. However, its current triple bill is one of very diminishing returns. It opens with Huang Yi’s Wicked Fish, an ensemble for 12 in which flickering light plays over choreography of fierce, elegant complexity. Although Huang takes visual inspiration from shoals of fish, the dancers often look more like a vast, fluid machine, massed into clusters and lines, the movement surging and pouring through their bodies.
At 20 minutes, Wicked Fish feels perfectly formed, in contrast to the two overextended pieces by company director Cheng Tsung-lung. In The Wall, Cheng choreographs a battle between individuality and conformity, with repressive lines of dance that progressively break out into wilder more slithering solos. In Beckoning, Cheng plays with ideas of porous identity, as the dancers mimic and absorb each other’s moves and a percussive score chisels out rhythms from their bodies. It’s marvellous to look at, but as a concept it’s desperately overworked.
• At Sadler’s Wells, London, until 23 November. Box office: 020-7863 8000.
