Mission Statement
ABOUT SHEN WEI
Hailed as "one of the great artists of our time" (The Washington Times), choreographer, director, dancer, painter, and designer Shen Wei is internationally renowned for the breadth and scope of his artistic vision.
Admiration for his talent has earned Shen Wei numerous awards, including a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship (2007), the U.S. Artists Fellow Award, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. Other accolades include: Australia’s Helpmann Award, the Nijinsky Emerging Choreographer Award, the Algur H. Meadows Prize, and a 2012 New York City Center Choreography Fellowship. The impact of Shen Wei Dance Arts' premiere performances on the Chinese mainland in Beijing led to a host of awards for Shen Wei: the Audi-China 2012 Artist of the Year Award, the Artist of the Year at the GQ-China 2013 Man of the Year Awards, and, most recently, the 2013 Chinese Innovator Award from the Wall Street Journal-China.
Born in China’s Hunan province in 1968, the son of Chinese Opera professionals, he was trained from youth in the rigorous practice of Chinese opera performance, traditional Chinese ink painting and calligraphy and was a performer with the Hunan State Xian Opera Company from 1984 to 1989. During his student years, he studied Western visual art, which propelled an interest in modern dance. In 1989, he began to train in modern dance at the American Dance Festival's (ADF) first linkage program at the Guangdong Dance Academy in China. Along with other students from the program, in 1991, he became a founding member of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company, the first modern dance company in China. Upon receipt of a fellowship, he moved to NYC in 1995 to study with the Nikolais/Louis Dance Lab and, in the same year, ADF invited Shen Wei to present his work. In July 2000, he founded Shen Wei Dance Arts (SWDA) at ADF. The Company quickly entered the international touring circuit, performing at premier festivals and venues worldwide.
Since forming his Company, he has received numerous commissions to support his creative works for Shen Wei Dance Arts, including multiple commissions from the American Dance Festival, Het Muziektheater, the Lincoln Center Festival, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Park Avenue Armory, Hong Kong’s New Vision Arts Festival, and the Edinburgh International Festival.
I WANT TO CAPTURE AND FOCUS ON MOMENTS OF TRANSFERENCE...TO REVEAL THE JOURNEY OF DANCE-MAKING AND ART-MAKING, LIVE IN EACH PERFORMANCE. -SHEN WEI
Shen Wei, who was the lead choreographer for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, also created dances for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal and Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo and choreographed the Rome Opera’s production of Rossini’s Moise et Pharaon, conducted by Ricardo Muti. Last spring, Shen Wei was commissioned to create a new work for the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam, and he choreographed, directed, and designed a new production of Carmina Burana for the chorus, orchestra, and ballet of Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Italy. The production, which included Shen Wei Dance Arts’ dancers, premiered in July 2013 and toured to the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, in September of 2013.
Recently, his work as a visual artist and choreographer has entered into a new dialogue in a series of performative installations and site-specific works, which have been presented at a number of museums and galleries, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the North Carolina Museum of Art, Collezione Maramotti in Italy, Mana Contemporary, and the Forum at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
As a visual artist, he has had solo shows in both New York and Hong Kong. An exhibit of his recent paintings is currently on display at the Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas, Texas. In December 2014, Miami's Freedom Tower will host a solo exhibition of his work during Art Basel/Miami.
SELECT AWARDS AND COMMISSIONS
- Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, Italy
- Het Nationale Ballet, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- New Vision Arts Festival, Hong Kong, China
- Park Avenue Armory, New York, USA
- Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland
- Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, Monaco
- 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremonies, Beijing, China
- Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Montréal, Canada
- The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, D.C., USA
- Het-Muziektheater, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2)
- American Dance Festival, North Carolina, USA (12)
- Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, California, USA
- Lincoln Center Festival, New York, USA (2)
- New York City Opera, New York, USA
- Guangdong Modern Dance Company, Guangzhou, China
Description
One of the premier international dance companies, Shen Wei Dance Arts has won worldwide acclaim for "amassing a body of works so strikingly original they defy categorization" (The Boston Globe). The work Shen Wei makes for his Company draws on influences as varied as traditional Chinese culture and arts, European Surrealism, American high modernism, and the ritual power of ancient drama. Transcending East and West, Shen Wei Dance Arts fuses these disparate forms to forge a startling new hybrid form of dance. The Company’s dances reflect the compositional rigor of Shen Wei the visual artist, dancer, and choreographer--incorporating vivid colors, striking design, and imaginative use of space into theatrical, kinetic paintings.
Since its founding in 2000, Shen Wei Dance Arts has performed in 138 cities, in 30 countries, on five continents and has appeared at prestigious festivals and venues worldwide, including the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Spoleto Festival, annual performances at the American Dance Festival, the Los Angeles Music Center, Venice Biennale, Sadler’s Wells, the Barbican Centre, Het Muziektheater, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Berliner Festpiele and the Sydney Festival. In the United States, Shen Wei Dance Arts has performed in 25 of the 50 states, gave the first dance performances on the concert stage at Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall in Los Angeles and recently completed a unique 5-year performance residency at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The Company performs annually in New York City, where it has been presented by the Lincoln Center Festival (5 times), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Park Avenue Armory, Works & Process at the Guggenheim, Asia Society, and Fall for Dance at City Center.
Recent company highlights include performances at the Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Bogotá in Bogotá, Colombia; the Festival de Danse in Cannes, France; the Ludwigshafen Festival in Germany; Festival Internacional de Artes Escénicas of Lima in Peru; the Ravenna Festival in Italy; week-long engagements at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; a three-city tour of Brazil; and a three-week tour to China with performances at Hong Kong’s New Vision Arts Festival and Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts. The performances in Beijing marked the first time an émigré choreographer was invited to bring his company back to the Chinese Mainland. Upcoming performances include the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow, Russia; the Mariinsky II in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Shanghai International Arts Festival in China; the Capital Museum in Beijing, China; and Miami Dade College in conjunction with Art Basel/Miami.
