By the age of 14, he was studying Chinese opera movement and paying for his first ballet lessons with money earned by writing. (He later published two novels.) The turning point came when Lin studied with modern dance pioneers Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham - influences that could be detected flitting through his early work with Cloud Gate.
But here, as with a segment called "Riffs on Agon" (which took inspirations of movement and music from Igor Stravinsky's "Agon, " a 1957 ballet by George Balanchine) and with the world premiere of "Orbit" (a composition for solo cello by Philip Glass), Lil Buck looked somewhat constrained held back by efforts based more on set choreography than improvisation.