In the 16th century, gazing out from the decks of ships off the coast of Southern China, Portuguese sailors saw it: a great green mass, thick with mountains and trees, rising from the sea. “Formosa!” they exclaimed—“beautiful!”—anointing the verdant place that would come to be known as Taiwan.

Lin Hwai-min and his Cloud Gate Dance Theater of Taiwan take that appraisal as inspiration for their own work of abstract beauty born from land and lore.

Using gesture, script, song and other elements from the island as raw material, Lin and dancers create a lustrous, transfigured sphere in which only the universal remains— a playground of love and life, mediated by tragedy, hope, and rebirth.