A consuming passion for dance has led Lo Man-fei on a path to becoming a prominent member of Taiwan's dance scene. Her dedication to expression in movement is apparent in her role as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and the artistic director of Cloud Gate 2, an offshoot of the island's most famous dance group.
"My favorite creation is always the one that's in the process of taking shape," says dancer-choreographer Lo Man-fei. "In retrospect, past performances are always more or less defective. They can't win my heart anymore. Once something is over, it's over."
With such unwavering ambition, it is no wonder that Lo Man-fei has emerged as a prominent figure in Taiwan's dance circles. The forty-seven-year-old artist's passion for life and dance has neither dimmed nor faltered over the years. She began to develop her skills in a private dance studio in her hometown of Ilan in northeastern Taiwan at the tender age of five. "It was quite common for children to learn dance at the time, and folk dance contests were held everywhere in Taiwan," Lo recalls.
Not unlike many other dance enthusiasts, she suspended her training while attending high school so she could pay full attention to her academic studies. Lo, however, could not make the sacrifice for long and again embraced her dreams of becoming a dancer. She joined the Neo-Classic Dance Company led by Liu Feng-hsueh, one of Taiwan's pioneering choreographers, in 1974, during her first year of college at National Taiwan University's (NTU) Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.
Later, in her third year of college, Lo had the opportunity to study with Lin Hwai-min, who in 1973 had founded Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, Taiwan's most prestigious dance troupe. "I was lucky. The competition among dancers back then was not as fierce as it is now," Lo says. "I was able to learn from these two masters." The artist believes she was accepted as a full-time dancer with Cloud Gate later in her career for the same reason. "I couldn't make it now with the skills I possessed at the time. There're so many dancers who are better than I was."
Although she may have had some misgivings about her own talent, the young Lo was considered an asset to the theater. Wu Su-chun, a first-generation Cloud Gate dancer who has known Lo for nearly thirty years, recounts the impact the young dancer had on the group. "Lo came across as a rather bright, sprightly, and fun-loving girl, greatly impressing the rest of the troupe," Wu says. "You know, Lin Hwai-min was quite serious about the performances, but through Lo we learned that one could dance well and have a relaxed attitude too."
Despite her obvious love of dance, most of Lo's friends encouraged her to take another road. Many of her university classmates sought to study abroad in fields such as computer science or finance that were more likely than dance to yield a promising future, and Lo considered doing the same at the time. "As for my family, they didn't ask too much from me. Their only request was that I go to college, any college."
In the end, fate seemed to have led her straight to her one passion. When Lo graduated from NTU, her family emigrated to New York City. It was natural for Lo to pursue her love for dance while living among some of the world's top dancers and finest dance schools. She attended classes at the Martha Graham School, the Alvin Ailey School of American Dance, and the Jose Limon Dance School. A year later, she returned to Taiwan and formally joined Cloud Gate in 1979. At first she took on minor roles in productions such as Legacy , but during the troupe's 1980 tour of Europe, she took the lead role performing in a piece called The Legend of the White Snake .
After four years with Cloud Gate, Lo Man-fei decided to return to the United States to complete her Master's in Fine Arts in dance at New York University. With degree in hand, Lo returned to Taiwan in 1985 to play a new role--this time as educator in the Department of Dance at the National Institute of the Arts, now known as Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA). Now an associate professor at the university, Lo is proud of the reforms she pushed for during her tenure as director of the department between 1992 and 1997 by promoting a seven-year continuous education program for graduates of junior high school. The department started the program in 1998, enabling students to receive a complete art education at an early age.
Lo Man-fei, after having pursued her passionate interest in dance for most of her life, was in 2000 honored with the National Culture and Arts Foundation's award for dance. For a person who is constantly seeking growth and change, however, she certainly experienced moments of frustration. While Lo was still a student, some of her teachers, such as Lin Hwai-min, commented on her "great potential to be developed." "Although I struggled hard to be a good dancer, I somehow felt stuck in a bottleneck," Lo says. She believes that as a dancer matures, he or she may experience an epiphany, and it sometimes takes an accumulation of life experiences to help improve one's performance.
Lo's career in dance took a turn in 1998, the year Cloud Gate celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. Founder Lin Hwai-min promised to create Cloud Gate 2 the following year to promote modern dance within Taiwan, and Lo was appointed the new group's artistic director, a title she holds to this day. "She's very open-minded and willing to listen to anyone offering suggestions," notes Chen Qiu-yin, rehearsal director of Cloud Gate 2. "That's unusual because many artists tend to think subjectively." This open-minded attitude is carried over in Lo's style of teaching, says Chen, who first established a teacher-student relationship with Lo at TNUA. "All the students like her very much," she adds.
Cloud Gate 2 has a tough mission: to promote the art of modern dance within Taiwan. The ten-member dance group remains in Taiwan most of the year and performs a wide repertoire to suit the various conditions of venues it appears in. To bring dance closer to the general public, the troupe often travels to more remote areas where people are least expected to spend money on modern dance performances, and thanks to corporate sponsors, many such shows are put on free of charge.
Expressing creativity through choreography is another area where Lo continues to challenge herself, and she admits to encountering bottlenecks all the time. Her first attempt at choreography, Between the Two (1982), was not well received by the critics, and this prompted Lo to return to the United States to continue her studies. Although she was discouraged, she continued to produce dance programs. In 1987 Lo created Cocoon, a performance that explored the complicated interaction between man and woman. For the first time, Lo, as a choreographer, received acclaim from the dance world. She has since created numerous dance programs, most of which touch on interpersonal relationships.
Although she is happiest when performing on stage, Lo Man-fei has found that she does not have many opportunities to dance other than occasional requests by Lin Hwai-min to perform as a guest dancer for Cloud Gate. To satisfy her desire to dance, Lo and three other veteran Cloud Gate dancers, including Wu Su-chun, established the Taipei Crossover Dance Company in 1994. From its first year, and generally every year since, Lo has created a dance performance for this new troupe. "We dance because we love to," she says. "We perform for the love of the art, not financial gain."
This new group was so named partly because the dancers were all on the threshold of becoming fortysomethings. "We wanted to see how far we could go at our age. No other dance group has taken up such a challenge," Wu explains. The group's name also reflects Lo's attitude toward life and her desire to transcend each stage of her life. "The more sweet a memory is, the more likely it is a source of pain," Lo observes. "One has to let go the past before freeing oneself from suffering."
Lo talks about the message behind her 2002 creation Reed Field, a dance about life and death, love and loss. The performance suggests that people should take a more relaxed attitude toward life and live without regret. "As I grow older, fewer things concern me. It's enough just to live," says Lo. Indeed, when something is over, it is simply over. As for her passion, surely Lo Man-fei will continue to dance and live her life to the fullest.