Media Release

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For immediate release
May 25, 2006

Choreographer Wen Wei Wang previews new work at the Banff Summer Arts Festival

Wen Wei Dance: Unbound • Saturday, June 3 • 7:30 p.m.
Eric Harvie Theatre • The Banff Centre • Free

In Toronto for a workshop several years ago, Vancouver-based choreographer Wen Wei Wang made a visit to the Bata Shoe Museum, where he saw something that brought back a rush of memory. It was a set of delicately embroidered “lotus shoes”, the tiny, pointed slippers made for Chinese women with traditionally bound feet. Though his grandmother had bound feet, Wen Wei says he didn’t think much about the custom growing up – but seeing the shoes in the museum began to inspire new ideas for a ballet.

On June 3, Wen Wei and his company, Wen Wei Dance, will preview a new work called Unbound in The Banff Centre’s Eric Harvie Theatre, part of the 2006 Banff Summer Arts Festival. Set to an original score by composer Giorgio Magnanensi, Unbound is a work for six dancers that explores the relationships between men and women, incorporating the limitations of movement imposed on his female ancestors because of their bound feet. 

A long-standing tradition in China that slowly forced the foot to bend in on itself, the bound foot rendered women decorative, a symbol of wealth and sexual attractiveness. When Wen Wei’s dancers, both men and women, wore the silk lotus shoes designed for Chinese opera, it affected their centre of balance, and inspired the original movement in Unbound.

“This new work echoes my Asian background and distant memories of bound feet,” Wen Wei says. “But the piece is not entirely a reflection of my own culture. It relates to all cultures in that it is about repression in any society.”

Born in mainland China, where he trained and performed as a professional dancer, Wen Wei Wang performed with Canadian companies including Ballet British Columbia and Judith Marcuse Dance Projects, before forming his own company, Wen Wei Dance in 2003. Winner of The Banff Centre’s prestigious Clifford E. Lee Award for choreography in 2000, Wen Wei has created new work for companies including Ballet Jörgen Canada, Alberta Ballet, and Goh Ballet Company.

Wen Wei Dance will be at The Banff Centre for a week in advance of the June 3 performance as part of a production residency, which enables the company to put together the final staging, lighting, and production details of Unbound before premiering the full work at the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa on June 9.

For high-resolution, downloadable images from Unbound:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/media_room/images/2006/bsaf/#dance

For a complete schedule of 2006 Banff Summer Arts Festival events:
http://www.banffcentre.ca/bsaf/2006