"A refined duo, with both dark and strange videos, realised by hip director Tsai Ming Liang, and magnificent sound effects. And as always, the sobriety that protects Lin Yuan Shang from overusing "made in Taiwan" techniques - or Western clichés.

He is the "Chinese Bastard" : half Peking duck, half French conserve of duck ; educated at the Peking Opera school, then liberated from its constraints by Mnouchkine. Twinges of karakoé, a "Chunking Express" savour smelling of good food. Shadowgraphs and musical kaleidoscope.

Between folk kitsch and more disturbing atmospheres, stocky Lin Yuan Shang and tall Yang Wei-Chen lead with an iron hand a bitter-sweet mixture which never reminds you of an overboiled stew : it is original and copious, danced and thought, nothing like those "cross-bred" performances with three notes of world music as a passport.

On which voyage are they taking us tonight ? Here, there, in front of and behind the screens. It entails such a change of surroundings that it is hard to land. LIN Yuan Shang - a rising name in the contemporary dance world."

"A financial support for "multimedia-dance" was first granted in 2001. Five projects profited by this measure, especially Lin Yuan Shang's captivating "Chinese Bastard" - a duo where East and West meet, as well as animal and human silhouettes, Chinese songs and electronic sounds, computer-created pixel-creatures and golden bodies."

"Lin Yuan Shang dances with Yang Wei Chen the contradictions of being a child born in theatre and then gone into exile : his fluid contemporary style is mixed with more traditional recollections linked to the movements of the Peking Opera. We will long remember Lin Yuan Shang, standing on a stretched or folded leg, drawing his movements down to his fingertips."

"The duo of Lin Yuan Shang and Yang Wei Chen, Chinese Bastard, mixes video images and the dances themselves in a close interaction. In collaboration with well-known Taiwanese film maker Tsai Ming Liang, the performance dexterously combines choreographic composition and images.

The pictures (electronic, real, games of shadows) frame, extend or reflect gestures. They are projected onto two large mobile screens moved by the dancers, modulating their space in a bi-frontal stage.

This lay-out, with an axial symmetry of images, the dancers' bodies and the audience, is the fruit of a previous work presented in June 2001 at the Centre National de la Danse - a 30' solo ; the screens multiplied, altered, sometimes idealized pictures of him.

These real and virtual bodies celebrate the successful association of different states of being, of time, of identity. These echoes are embodied by dancer Yang Wei-Chen, who, on the side of the choreographer, dances in the same lissom and feline sensuality. A clone where male and female, tradition and modernity interact, where the Western-style dance is full of spells from Asia…

Between origin and cross-breeding, Lin Yuan Shang presents himself as a "bastard" : a combination of stages of life, of a variety of cultures. We hear the bell of the Peking Opera, the teacher's rod… A friendly nod to the little boy from Taiwan who, through his dance, is inventing his own place in the world."

"Lin Yuan Shang, of Taiwanese origin, lives in France. However, he is far from being unknown to the taiwanese audience, as he regularly comes back to share with us his new creations, the joy and the emotion that characterize his artistic career - from the Peking Opera to contemporary dance. His last show, Bastard, could be described as the auto-portrait of an artist whose work is a blend of several cultural influences, revealed by body language, images, music and auto-derision…

Lin Yuan Shang's body is full of fluidity ; his energy comes from the centre and initiates free movements. He adds the Peking Opera codes to the contemporary dance techniques, which endows his dance with a very particular style. It is this connivance that Bastard shows : not only dance, but also East and West, emotion and thought - research, difference, meeting, the flow of time and space. A traditional support on the one hand, the attractions of modernity on the other hand. […]

The two dancers are constantly on the move, constantly in search of something ; sometimes they meet. In search of oneself or of the other ? The body language highlights a sentimental link that cannot be explained.

Tsai Ming Liang's images endow the show with a particular time, that marvellously suits the questions arising from Bastard : when you leave your culture, what remains ? Growing up, discovering ? Wound or memory ? […]

At the end of the show, Lin Yuan Shang shows us a body that finds its way from tradition, Peking Opera, to western classical music and love songs. Little by little, he builds a new identity, neither completely western nor completely oriental, but which represents the state of mind of an artist who has crossed different cultures."

"French company Eolipile, supported in Taiwan by Taiwan Cultural Council and Taipei French Institute, will perform tonight Bastard, which expresses, mixing arts and modern techniques, the "disorder" of contemporary cultural experiences.

In French papers, one could read about Lin Yuan Shang : "a very original artist, who managed to cut a path away from "classical" or "contemporary" careers." They could add he succeeded in transposing on the stage his experience of travel and of cultural differences. Dance, Tsai Ming Liang's images, music and lights […] show wandering silhouettes, belonging nowhere, and yet diffusing a feeling of permanence : that is the way one can sum up the state of mind of Bastard. […]

Lin Yuan Shang explains that Bastard is the result of his opinion about his multicultural identity. "I refuse to be labelled. I don't want to take advantage of the 'exoticism' attractions either ; I will never consider my Chinese roots as a moneymaker. Nor will I pretend to be French".

In his show, the two dancers pass each other on a bi-frontal stage. Their silhouettes, projected onto the screens, take part in the creation of an atmosphere between emptiness and reality, where bodies reflect changing identities, beyond time and space."

"In Bastard, Lin's first multimedia work, the visual imagery was created by internationally acclaimed film director Tsai Ming Liang […]. His style seems particularly suitable for the highly urban feel of Bastard, which also makes use of shadow images so that the two dancers can interact not only with each other, but with the images of each other. These images are then manipulated using mobile screens that form the only props of the minimalist stage located in the cavernous interior of Huashan's performance space.
The music, by French musician Frédéric Blin, is a mixture of ambient sounds taken from around Taipei. One remarkable dance sequence uses a rhythmic baseline integrated with manipulated sounds of Taipei streets. It is remarkable what is achieved with the ding-dong sound that we hear every time we enter a 7-Eleven store. Blin, who has collaborated many times with Lin, said that with Bastard the music and the movement of the dance have become a more complex interaction, with sound echoing movement, and movements echoing sound. The mix of techno, Chinese songs and other musical symbols make the dance very local for a Taiwanese audience, and is replete with a very urban vibrancy, tension and sorrow.
Lin's sensuous choreography draws from many sources, but his heritage from Beijing opera is evident in many ways. But even as he allows a minute or so of actual Beijing opera singing and movement to enter into this new work, Lin is adamant in shunning "exoticism" which he regards as being driven primarily by consumerism. Speaking about his artistic foundations in Chinese traditional performance, Lin said : "I don't want to hock my heritage. I am happy that I have it. But it must find its own way to 'shine' in the modern world. It is something it must do on its own".