DanceWorks Launches 39th Season with Wen Wei Dance, Oct. 21-22
By: Christina Mancuso Sep. 23, 2016
DanceWorks, Toronto's longest running contemporary dance series, proudly kicks off the first show of its 39th Season with the return of Vancouver's Wen Wei Dance. The company brings the Toronto premiere of their latest acclaimed interdisciplinary work, Made in China, to Harbourfront Centre Theatre as part of the NextSteps series. The performance runs for two nights only: Friday October 21 and Saturday October 22, at 8pm. Tickets are now on sale.
The quartet marries tradition with contemporary practice to reflect the evolution of classical forms in a modern world. This collaboration between three senior artists, alongside emerging media artist Chien, is an intimate work that mines deeply personal narratives of its creators. Wang, Gao and He grew up in Mao's China; Chien immigrated to Canada from Taiwan and is their younger counterpart.
Made in China emerges from the artists' life stories and shared cultural history. Like a collective biography, the artists explore memories of their childhood in China, the artistic training of the elder three during the Cultural Revolution and the daring paths all of their careers have taken abroad. Through dance, music and storytelling, these formative memories are woven together to create an intimate dialogue that opens a window to another world.
"All my work, comes from my experience growing up," explains Wang, "But this work is not narrative, and it's not only about me. It's about how 'made in China' is starting to mean something else. It is about people in China needing art, and producing it."
Made in China tours to Halifax Oct 6-8 and to Montreal Oct 14-15 prior to its Toronto premiere.
Made in China premiered in Banff January 31, 2015 and was remounted in Vancouver in February of the same year:
"a personal engrossing giftŠa delectable Chinese candy box of artistic expression... by turns surprising and spellbinding." - The Georgia Straight
"a visual feast that asks questions about change and loss, new life and what is left behind." - Review Vancouver
Read a 2015 interview with Vancouver's The Georgia Straight here:
http://www.straight.com/arts/387911/wen-wei-dances-made-china-digs-chinese-pasts
Watch a 2013 work-in-progress excerpt from Made in China here: https://youtu.be/jyH70iA1Ay0
Wen Wei Dance's work reflects a multiplicity of dance and social experiences. Each creation is influenced by a natural evolution of personal identity and strives to reflect the underlying experience of social, cultural and personal development. Wen Wei Dance creates startling and provocative performance works of a distinctive trans-cultural sensibility. With an original and highly individual style, Artistic Director Wen Wei Wang fuses precise and subtle choreography with stunning visual design and music, turning each work into a rich and unique world. The company performs his acclaimed works across Canada and at dance festivals around the world, including the Canada Dance Festival and the International Contemporary Dance Festival in Colombia, South America. Notably, the company performed two tours of China, and at the prestigious Venice Biennale in Italy.
Wen Wei Wang began dancing at an early age in China, where he was born and raised. He trained and danced professionally with the Langzhou Song and Dance Company. In 1991, he came to Canada and joined the Judith Marcuse Dance Company after which he danced with Ballet British Columbia for seven years. In 2000, he received the Clifford E. Lee Choreographic Award. Since 2003, he has served as Artistic Director of Wen Wei Dance, choreographing six full-length works for the company and winning awards forCock-Pit (2009, Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award) and Unbound (2006, Isadora Award for Excellence in Choreography and Performance). In addition to his works for Wen Wei Dance, he has choreographed for the Alberta Ballet, Ballet BC, Ballet Jorgen, Dancers Dancing North West Dance Projects in Portland, the Vancouver Opera (Nixon in China), the San Francisco Opera and Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal (BJM). He is also an Associate Dance Artist of Canada's National Arts Centre.
Gao Yanjinzi is the Artistic Director and one of the founding members of Beijing Modern Dance Company. Her work draws on her Buddhist upbringing and traditional Chinese dance training. In a contemplative, harmonious world, her dancers move with a natural flow of energy - yet surprises lurk around every turn, causing audiences to question the legitimacy of such binaries as "traditional/modern" and "East/West." She performs and presents her work throughout Asia, Europe, Australia and North America and has received numerous awards both in China and abroad, including the Grand Prix at the 12th International Modern Choreography Competition in Belarus for her piece Worlds (1999) and leading Italian dance magazine Danza e Danza Award for Best Performance forJue-Aware (2006). Ms Gao has received commissions to create works for such festivals as the Berlin Art Festival, Italy's Biennale de Venezia, and the Singapore Dance Festival. Ms Gao was personally invited by Pina Bausch to create and perform a solo work, As I Heard, to premiere in Ms Bausch's dance festival in Wuppertal, Germany in November, 2008.
Qiu Xia He was born in the province of Shaanxi China and has had two notable careers in music: as a performer and teacher back home, and then as performer, composer, producer and teacher in Canada since 1989. She has devoted all her life to the performing arts. Her broad interests include singing, dancing and world instruments, but her maIn Focus is the Chinese Pipa. It has a 2000 year history and is linked to the Middle-Eastern Oud. The four strings are plucked with all five fingernails of the right hand. Since her arrival in Canada, Ms He has launched a very successful series of cross-cultural musical projects that have helped smash stereotypes about Chinese music. She is a pioneer and key player in the vibrant multicultural music scene of Vancouver that thrives today. Starting in 1991, she toured extensively across the country and around the world. Her own group Silk Road Music has earned a Juno nomination, two Canadian Folk Music nominations and garnered two West Coast Music Awards. Her compositions include the soundtracks for Leo-nominated films such as Tears of a Lotus, Darcy Island and the movie In Our Own Hands. In addition, Qiu Xia founded the Enchanted Evenings concert series at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Vancouver.
Sammy Chien brings a technological thrust to Made in China, contributing electroacoustic music and digital imagery. He is a Taipei-born, Vancouver-based interdisciplinary media artist who seeks to merge cinema, sound art, new media and dance performance techniques into a new individual practice. He studied film at Simon Fraser University (BFA Honors) and has collaborated visually, aurally and conceptually in numerous multi-disciplinary projects ranging from film, theatre, dance and audiovisual performance to interactive installations which have exhibited across Canada, Western Europe and Asia including Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Contemporary Arts Taipei, National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing) and Hellerau: European Centre for the Arts Dresden. His collaboration with Wen Wei Dance and the Beijing Modern Dance Company has led him to work with artists such as Wong Kar Wai's cinematographer Christopher Doyle and the Father of Rock in China, Cui Jian, as well as having lunch with Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei. Sammy is the Co-Founder/Co-Artistic Director of Chimerik collective, which is a vision, philosophy and imaginative environment that values creative technology and new media practices as important vehicles capable of bridging various art forms to construct new kinds of artistic engagement and language that are trans-national, trans-cultural and prompt social change.
DanceWorks began as a collective of independent dance artists in 1977 and has grown to become Toronto's leading presenter of independent dance. DanceWorks offers seasons of eclectic, exhilarating choreography programmed to intrigue, challenge and enthral. DanceWorks adds to the theatrical experience with Carol's Dance Notes and post-performance conversations with artists. DanceWorks is the administrator of the CanDance Network and Dance Ontario Association. www.danceworks.ca +https://danceworksblog.wordpress.com/
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