Cursive II, a sequel to Cursive, had its international premiere at the opening of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, right after its world premiere in Taipei in September 2003, where it won both the Critics’ Award and the Festival Patrons’ Award. After studying Chinese calligraphy masterpieces, Lin Hwai-min found, despite the differences in styles, all the brush works share one common element: the focused energy with which the calligraphers “danced” during writing. He asked Cloud Gate dancers to improvise by facing blown-up images of calligraphy and created Cursive. Although both works were inspired by the aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy, Cursive II is drastically different from its forerunner. Chinese believe there are five shades of black ink. While Cursive emphasizes the dark blackness with lots of vigorous attacks, Cursive II explores the lighter shades in a meditative mood, evoking the serene quality of porcelain from the Sung Dynasty. A work of delicate lyricism, Curs