Shen Wei Named Choreographer and Consultant for Olympics

Shen Wei, artistic director of Shen Wei Dance Arts, has been named a lead creative consultant and principal choreographer for the 2008 Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Beijing. Shen Wei was brought in to be lead choreographer by the Beijing Opening Ceremonies' Artistic Director Zhang Yimou, the renowned Chinese film director.

 
For the 2008 Olympics, Shen Wei created material for the ceremonies in New York City, working with the dancers from Shen Wei Dance Arts.  The pieces will be performed by the Olympic dancers in Bejiing.

 
Shen Wei was born in Hunan, China, is a United States citizen, and lives in New York City.  He is not only a choreographer, but a painter, photographer and designer who creates all the costumes and sets for Shen Wei Dance Arts. He is renowned for developing original dance incorporating visual and storytelling elements extracted from the theatre, Chinese opera, Eastern philosophy, traditional and contemporary visual art and sculpture.

 
Founded in 2000, Shen Wei Dance Arts is a dynamic, young, multi-racial modern-dance company, based in New York City, with roots throughout the US and China.  The company has developed, premiered, and performed nine works in more than 100 cities on 5 continents. Shen Wei Dance Arts is in its first year of a five-year residency at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (2007-11).

 
The company's repertoire—acclaimed for its idiosyncratic vocabulary and breathtaking scenic elements—includes Folding (2000), Near the Terrace (2000), Rite of Spring (2003), Connect Transfer (2004), Re- (Part I and II) (2006 and 2008), and Second Visit to the Empress, a piece in which the traditional Chinese opera is re-imagined through modern dance (2007).

 
In developing each new work, Shen Wei and his dancers collaborate to create a discrete movement vocabulary. Through several years of such "movement research," company members have assimilated Shen Wei's unique method, called Natural Body Development Technique. The result, as described by Lewis Segal of The Los Angeles Times, is "Shen Wei's reinvention of the dance vocabulary: the way the movement impetus flows from any point in his dancers' bodies to any other, bypassing every convention of dance-as-steps or choreography as a predominantly vertical statement."

 
Shen Wei is a 2007 MacArthur "Genius" and US Artists Fellow. He has also received the Guggenheim, Nijinsky (Monaco), and Etoiles de Ballet (Cannes) Awards.

 
For further information, visit www.shenweidancearts.org.