Wen Wei Dance on Salt Spring

This just in from MiBC outreach coordinator Anna Haltrecht... Thanks Anna!


"International Dance Day came early on Salt Spring. On Tuesday April 27, I showed the recent works of Wen Wei Wang on film and talked about his life growing up and studying dance in China. There was no admission charge for this event. I chose to do this for IDD as his company, Wen Wei Dance, was scheduled to perform his newest piece “Cock-Pit” at our local art centre, ArtSpring, the following week. I was thrilled that George Sipos, executive director of ArtSpring, chose to present Wen Wei Dance as part of ArtSpring’s 2009/10 dance season. Salt Spring was the last stop on the dance company’s cross country tour.

The company was presented without the financial assistance of Made in BC – Dance on Tour. The whole event was a success. Forty people attended the film evening which I am sure contributed to a sold out audience for the performance and 15 participants for the community workshop. Wen Wei Dance’s manager graciously sent me DVDs of recent Wen Wei Dance work. I chose excerpts to show plus I found 2 clips on you tube of the “White Haired Girl” and the “Red Detachment of Women”, two iconic ballets from the Cultural Revolution, the period of time that Wen Wei studied dance in China. I researched Wen Wei’s life on-line, finding lots of interesting material to use as a source for my talk. To set the scene, while the audience entered the theatre, I showed a slide show of Wen Wei Dance photos. I started the evening with the story of Wen Wei growing up in China and his love for dance beginning with seeing a performance of the “White Haired Girl”. I then showed the clips of the 2 Chinese ballets to demonstrate Wen Wei’s dance roots.

I continued talking about how he came to Canada and founded his own company, followed by an excerpt from his solo, “One Man’s…”. After telling about Wen Wei’s inspiration for “Unbound”, I showed about 30 minutes of this excellent dance. I then explained about “Three Sixty Five” and showed one excerpt from this piece. The evening ended with comments from the audience and the impressive “Cock-Pit” trailer, with a reminder of the date of the upcoming performance, and the community workshop Wen Wei was teaching. I had a great time, I could have talked all night!

Many of the people that came to the evening already had their “Cock-Pit” tickets, but many others did not and used this showing as an indicator that this dance performance was not to be missed. One gentleman came up to me after the dance performance and said that he had previous plans for that evening but cancelled them on attending the film night, and he certainly was glad he did.

To promote the Wen Wei Dance events, I made a flyer which ArtSpring made into a post card, I wrote 2 press releases one each for the film night and workshop, I sent several emails to my extensive list as well as to the local and provincial politicians. I posted the information on all the local calendars, put up the flyers and distributed the cards, arranged for the local paper to do an interview with Wen Wei and dance review, and arranged company workshops with the high school. As well, ArtSpring put advertisements in the paper, and sent promotion by email and regular post.

I believe all this work had a very positive effect; it got a buzz going on the island. People came to the performance that had never been to a dance performance previously; over 30 high school students came and many artists as well as our loyal dance lovers. Half the audience stayed for the post-performance chat which I facilitated. There was incredible interest in this remarkable choreographer and his fabulous dancers. Many thoughtful questions were asked, Wen Wei was very gracious in his answers and explanations. I also mentioned that Josh Martin would be returning in the fall as part of the Made in BC – Dance on Tour performance of his company, 605.

Wen Wei Dance helped grow our contemporary dance audience, people are still talking about it. The film evening I led, the workshops and the wonderful performance of “Cock-Pit” all contributed. As written in the local paper, the Driftwood: “It seems that ArtSpring, at long last, has found its contemporary dance audience and one only hopes that Tuesday night’s crowd will remember this performance and return to sample the dance fare on the ArtSpring menu in the 2010-11 season.”

Yes, Salt Spring is well on it’s way to putting contemporary dance on the map, however, we know that we can not falter, we still need to continue our work and we still need financial support from our provincial and federal art funding organizations, Made in BC-Dance on Tour, BC Arts Council and Canadian Heritage."

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The IDD Wen Wei Dance film and talk evening event was sponsored by: ArtSpring, Made in BC-Dance on Tour, The Dance Centre, Dancer Transition Resource Centre-BC Office and the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists/BC Chapter.
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Photos of Wen Wei Dance courtesy of Wen Wei Dance

Photo of Anna Haltrecht courtesy of Anna Haltrecht