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Lin Hwai-min, founder and Artistic Director of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre and Cloud Gate 2 of Taiwan, has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

Mirella Bartrip, Trinity Laban Director of Dance, presented the award at Sadler’s Wells on 9 May 2018 after the UK premiere of Formosa, Lin Hwai-min’s final creation as Artistic Director of Cloud Gate.

The presentation was made at a special reception hosted by Alistair Spalding, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Sadler’s Wells, and attended by Deputy Representative Mr Shyang-Yun Cheng of the Taipei Representative Office in the UK.

The citation, read by Mirella Bartrip, included the following tribute:

“It is timely for Trinity Laban to honour Lin Hwai-min as one of the most outstanding and distinguished creative people of our time. He is choreographer, artistic director, producer, writer, educator; his commitment to the continuing development of dance as an art form in contemporary culture is exceptional.

Lin Hwai-min, the award of Honorary Fellowship of Trinity Laban pays tribute to your remarkable life as an artist and educator. We salute you for your distinct choreographic language, which has brought together so many different influences to create what we know today as your unique movement aesthetic.”

On receiving the fellowship, Lin Hwai-min commented –

“I am humbled to receive this Honorary Fellowship from Trinity Laban. For a person who started taking regular dance classes late at 23 years old, this is a tremendous encouragement. I would like to thank all the people who have supported Cloud Gate and myself through the past 45 years. And I hope dancers in Taiwan would know that though Taiwan and London are far away in distance, the world of dance could be small and warm, as this honour demonstrates tonight.”

Trinity Laban Honorary Fellowships are awarded each year to distinguished artists, practitioners, educators and professionals in the fields of the performing arts and education. Previous recipients have included dance artists Sir Matthew Bourne, Merce Cunningham and Emma Gladstone, musicians Sir Edward Downes, the Kronos Quartet and Ravi Shankar, and leaders in the arts such as Sir Tony Hall, Darren Henley MBE and Sir Cameron Mackintosh.

Image L-R: Lin Hwai-min, Alistair Spalding, Mirella Bartrip (credit: JK Photography)