Cloud Gate to stage AI-powered outdoor performances of 'Waves'

Taipei, July 6 (CNA) The Cloud Gate Dance Theatre will stage "Waves," its 2023 work created to explore and experiment with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in choreography, for this year's free outdoor performances, the dance troupe announced Thursday.

Cloud Gate will hold two outdoor performances this summer, one in the square between the National Theater and Concert Hall in Taipei on July 27 and the other at the Chiayi City Municipal Stadium on Aug. 3, and both of them begin at 7 p.m., the dance troupe said in a statement.

"Waves" was created to show what Cloud Gate Artistic Director Cheng Tsung-lung (鄭宗龍) described as the invisible energy that runs through people and connects them with others and where they are, according to the statement.

For this production, Cheng collaborated with Japanese new media artist Daito Manabe, who collected data from dancers' movements and ran the data with AI software to generate images Cheng used in his choreography.

The images are also used to create the set dancers interact with on the stage, along with the music and sound effects created by Manabe.

For the audience in Taipei, Cloud Gate also planned a post-show party with Cheng's long-time collaborator, musician Lim Giong (林強), who rearranged classic Taiwanese songs for the audiovisual event, according to the statement.

Lim's music will be accompanied by images created with real-time computing by digital art group Dimension Plus, the dance troupe said.

Before the two performances in Taiwan, Cloud Gate will first bring "Waves" to Italy for the dance troupe's debut at the International Festival of Contemporary Dance in Venice from July 18-19.

The dance troupe's website also shows a two-stop tour of "Sounding Light" in Germany in August, and a month-long North American tour of "13 Tongues" in seven cities in the United States and "Lunar Halo" in Montreal, Canada, starting in late October.