In case you missed us at the Guggenheim…

…here are some beautiful images of our dancers performing excerpts from ”Connect Transfer” and “Folding” in the rotunda. (Photos byYi-Chun Wu)  A slideshow different pictures from the night can be viewed on the Ancient Paths, Modern Voices website here.

“Folding” (below) was performed as never seen before, offering spectators various vantage points unavailable to audience members in a traditional theater setting.

Here also is just a taste of the enlightening dialogue between Shen Wei and Anna Kisselgoff as excerpts from the company’s repertoire were presented.   It was truly a facinating night of up-close-and-personal performances and insight into Shen Wei’s technique, inspiration, and thought processes.  These were posted live on our twitter account during our Sunday night performance.   

7:54 PM :  Live from the Guggenheim tonight at 7:30pm Eastern Time! Follow us @SWDA!

7:55 PM :  So–technical difficulties, but here we are! Anna Kisselgoff, chief dance critic of the New York Times for 20 some years introduces SWDA

7:56 PM :  AK=Anna Kisselgoff, SW=Shen Wei, ok?!

7:57 PM :  We are here to explore 10 years of SW and his company, founded in 2000, entering its tenth anniversary season in 2010

7:58 PM :  AK: SW was born to a family of artists in Hunan, trained as painter, dancer, calligrapher, founds the first modern dance co in China

7:58 PM :  AK: What is inspiration for RITE OF SPRING; SW: structure of music as starting point, focus on rotation of body parts, simple human mvmt

7:59 PM :  SW: handpainted floor covering that is in dialogue with movement

8:00 PM : An Excerpt from MAP–2005 work in collaboration with music by Steve Reich, 10 dancers on the Guggenheim stage whirling like mad

8:00 PM : AK: What is inspiration for RE- TRIPTYCH (2009)? SW: Re- invokes concepts of rebirth, renewal, rethink. Do not have this word in Chinese!

8:03 PM : AK: What is inspiration for 3 parts of Triptych? SW: 1: Tibet, 2: Angkor Wat (Cambodia), 3: Silk Road. personal journeys that became dance

8:05 PM : EXCERPT RE- 2: Inspired by friezes on ancient temples at Angkor Wat, music from a local group of artists injured in cambodian civil war

8:08 PM : SW: Sculpture pushes me to think of movement in different way. Movement of one character in frieze inspires movement of another

8:06 PM :  AK: Re 2 a frieze with movement tumbling out of it: very unusual–what is inspiration, SW?

8:09 PM :  SW: We use internal energy, technique that creates movement by breath or feelings, feel you have no bones, you fly, chi affects muscles

8:09 PM :  AK: next piece inspired by Tibet, SW invited Tibetan nun to sing at NYC premiere, a large Tibetan mandala on stage. What inspired technique?

8:14 PM :  SW: Journey in Tibet; experience of gravity, difficulty of breath. How translate to movement? Spent 2 weeks in studio with dancer in dark!

8:14 PM : AK: SW created a book of photographs in Tibet, proceeds go to support orphanage in Tibet, SW was moved by humility of people and landscape

8:16 PM : AK: What was inspiration for part 3: Silk Road?

8:16 PM : SW: Took 40 day trip to Silk Road, to see how different cultures influenced each other. What separates East and West? What is shared?

8:18 PM :  SW: discovered theme in China/East: unified, shared experience; Western: focus on individual, personal journey

8:22 PM :  SW: Part 3 done with eyes closed. Pretty dangerous! Focus on unity/individual in connection. AK: A conceptual work! SW: Music by David Lang

8:23 PM :  Moving up to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Rotunda: Excerpts from FOLDING (2000); NEAR THE TERRACE (2001); CONNECT TRANSFER (2004). Thanks for following tonight!!

SWDA at the GUGGENHEIM // October 24 and 25

Please join SWDA at the Guggenheim Museum for a preview of our 10th anniversary season on October 24^th and 25^th at 7:30 pm!  Part of the Works & Process series as well as Carnegie Hall’s festival Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: Celebrating Chinese Culture (info on Shen Wei here). 

Upcoming SWDA Open Classes: Oct 19-23

In a few weeks five of our wonderful company members will each be teaching classes (M-F, 10-12noon, the week of Oct 19th) at Panetta Movement Center (214 West 29th Street, 10th floor).  We wanted you, our loyal blog readers, to be the first to know!  Read more about the dancers here.   See below for a complete list of class descriptions and sign up now! ($15/class or $65 for the week with pre-registration by emailing SWDAclass@gmail.com)

Class Descriptions

Andrew Cowan – Technique and Improv – Monday, Oct 19th, 10am-12noon

Technique class will begin with exercises that warm the body from the inside out, cultivating the body as tool for movement development.  Class will focus on qualitative concepts including Energy, Flow, and Continuous Motion. Class will develop a higher sense of spatial awareness.  Improvisation will draw on Andrew’s experiences with Shen Wei Dance Arts, where emphasis is placed on quality of movement and concept investigation, rather than more traditional forms of choreographed phrase work. Improvisation exercises will aid the dancer’s investigation of self vs. space.

Javier Baca – Technique – Tuesday Oct, 20th, 10am-12noon

Class will start with a sequence of rolling and warming of the spine, softening the joint to allow the body to arrive at the ready for larger movement.  Combinations will then focus on the transfer of energy to allow for larger more expansive qualities of movement at maximum efficiency.

Adam Weinert – Technique – Wednesday, October 21st, 10am-12noon

Drawing from principles of the Franklin Method, Dowd Anatomy, and Gaga Technique, the first portion of this class aims to stimulate physical awareness, core strength, and healthy alignment.  With this foundation established, we then expand on these ideas to include the space, its occupants, dynamic changes and musicality.

Sara Procopio – Technique – Thursday, October 22, 10am-12noon

An opportunity to immerse into the wonder of the moving body, through daily practice, this class will begin by encouraging the body to arrive to neutral as a preparation for full-out dancing.  From a neutral and aligned body, we will investigate movement based upon breath, flow, suspension, center-shifting, bouncing, momentum, spirals and joint rotations through simple exercises and travelling phrases.  Exploring movement ideas in relationship to one’s own innate movement qualities will open the body and mind to new ways of dancing.  The class is influenced by Sara’s work with Shen Wei Dance Arts as well as her own movement research.

Cecily Campbell – Technique – Friday, October 23rd, 10am-12noon

This class will build on the alignment and clarity in the body through concepts of a simple, open and grounded technique.  We will play inside a full range of movement, learning to access a clear and friendly communication between the movement and the mover,  and exploring the ways in which that kind of listening and following inside our movement can bring new qualities to our physicality.  It’s a class about space and music and breath, focusing your body inside those contexts in a way that maximizes enjoyment for all.

Shen Wei reveals Olympic secrets!

How did they get all of the people in those dancing boxes synchronized? Where did all of the performers come from?  Shen Wei talks with fellow Syracuse University “Cultural Diplomacy” panelist, David Pogue of the New York Times about some of what actually happened behind scenes at the Opening Ceremony: here.  

Dancing boxes of a giant moveable printing press with a person inside each one! 

Tibetan Mandalas: Traditional & Contemporary interpretations side-by-side

In a stroke of pure programming genius, Syracuse University campus will host both the construction of a traditional sand mandala and SWDA’s staged interpretation of a Tibetan mandala (Re: I, a.k.a. Re: Tibet) in the same week.  The Tibetan monks who have been invited to perform this ceremonial construction will painstakingly pour lines of sand to create the Chenrezig mandala during business hours all week (September 21-25).  Once they have completed the mandala, they will ritually destroy the piece to represent the impermanence of life.  (Check out the live video feed of the monks working on the mandala!)

Shen Wei’s has taken this idea of the creation and destruction of the mandala and set it for the stage.  In Re: I, as the audience enters, dancers are seen on stage building the mandala out of colorful paper shards; slowly over the course of the piece their movements smudge and mix the colors together until the mandala is no longer decipherable. 

Photo: Alex Pines

If you are in the area, please join us for these exciting events! 

More information about the visit of the Tibetan monks here.

Live feed of mandala construction, and information about the mandala and the monks themselves here.

View video excerpts of Re:I here.

This Weekend // Shen Wei and Brett Egan at Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy

If you’re near upstate New York this weekend, don’t miss Shen Wei and Brett Egan in conversation at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of International Relations with “soft power” diplomacy luminary Joe Nye; NY Times Technology Editor David Pogue; Marjane Satrapi, Iranian and French contemporary graphic novelist, and author of “Persepolis”; and Paul Salopek, former Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

The September 21 Panel discussion will be webcast at 7 p.m. at http://video.syr.edu/live

From the Press Release:

“Shen found the chance to participate in the upcoming symposium especially timely and gratifying, as both he and his company encounter diverse audiences and policymakers as they travel around the globe. “Art is perhaps the only public context where we can agree that we all fear, hope, love and desire,” says Brett Egan, executive director of SWDA. “And while art can’t produce political change without policy change, it does help individuals of all nationalities produce cultures of tolerance to support that change when the right moment comes.”

The panel will be moderated by David Crane, professor of practice in Syracuse University’s College of Law and founding chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, an international war crimes tribunal.

Syracuse Performances: Sept 24 & 25

Next week! SWDA heads back to Syracuse University to perform the finished version of Re: Triptych, a piece that was partially developed during the company’s residency there this past spring. These performances (Sept 24 & 25) will serve as the “Shared First-Year Experience” described as “a cultural event that serves as a unifying intellectual experience for all incoming students and invites engagement through the range of perspectives.” Hopefully these students will have plenty to discuss and share after their Shen Wei Dance Arts experience! Read more about the events by clicking here.

Photo: Marieke Fenton

Sara’s teaching @ DNA this Friday!

Sara Procopio, a founding member of Shen Wei Dance Arts, is teaching a class this Friday, Sept 11, 10am-noon, at Dance New Amsterdam (280 Broadway (entrance on Chambers), 2nd Floor, NY, NY 10007).  For more information please click on the brochure below:

Summer with SWDA

Hey all…Alex here. I can’t believe how fast the six weeks I spent interning with SWDA went by. During my stay, I continued a photo collection of the dancers that I began working on during their three week residency at Syracuse University. Throughout my documentation, I got to travel to Durham, NC for the American Dance Festival and be a part of Lincoln Center Festival, which was such a great learning experience! Not only did I get amazing access to take photos, but I got to see behind the scenes and observe the Tech/Production side of things. The experience has opened my world to a whole new realm of photography and has renewed my passion for dance…both of which I will pursue during the next four months in London. I hope to reunite with the company soon, but until then, catch ya on the flip side!

Klaus Lucka photos: Armory Event

We love it when Klaus Lucka comes to photograph SWDA events and rehearsals, and this time was no exception!  Posted here are a few photographs he took this past June during the SWDA response to Ernest Neto’s breathtaking installation at the Park Ave Armory. His panoramic photos transform our dancers into living sculptures, offering us an entirely different perspective on the collaboration.  

 Check out Klaus Lucka’s website here.

If you missed the event and would like learn more about it or see more pictures, visit the Park Ave Armory website for a slideshow of SWDA’s response to Ernest Neto’s sculpture.