In the post-performance discussion Chinese-born choreographer Shen Wei was joined by many of the thirteen dancers who had just performed his new work, Mindscape. They were no longer wearing the costumes of what we learned were their favorite colors. Their legs however had vestiges of their chosen hue— the color they chose for their solo cadenza where they gracefully streaked, glided, tumbled, arched, split, and more to leave their imprimatur on the stage-sized canvass the troupe en toto was creating. They made their personal color mark with paint-soaked mittens in their chosen hue. Jackson Pollack called it action painting; Shen Wei dancers’ bodies seemed to shout to Pollack -You want action? Hey, this is how it is really done.
American Dance Festival Showcases a Dance Style Born of a More Collective Mindset
Shen Wei’s 9-part Mindscape is set to a poem that Shen Wei wrote in his earlier years speaking of the striving human spirit in chapters with names like Empathy, Awakening, Morning Light, My Boundless Heart-Sky, etc.
Part I unfolds with little differentiation of the dancers as individuals. Their costume colors seem to be consciously muted— especially when we look back from the color explosion that follows. No one dancer ever seems to be a virtuoso star. Rather, each one moves to activate the other and it all combines to give us a picture of the infinite variations of human connection shown in a vocabulary of movement. Each dancer is energized, activated and entwined in the dancers by their side. It’s not that one dancer shows grace or virtuosity— it’s that the collective does.
As they come together in an interlacing weave, a camera from above shows their kaleidoscope patterns as they intertwine. We see them from above and we see them in front of us simultaneously. It’s a visual that opens us up on another level to feel the ensemble’s fluidity.
Props and Humor
You will never see a whirligig or pinwheel again without thinking of Shen Wei Arts! One by one the dancers come in to do a solo in seeming homage to their personal pinwheel that they then each place in the front of the stage fired into action by a mini fan. One by one the dancers show how this breeze energy infuses their spirit and dance. SPOILER ALERT: Just when you might think the entire alphabet of pinwheel prompts has been exhausted, a dancer enters in a supersized pinwheel big enough to power a plane.
It’s while we are still smiling at this prelude that the body painting finale unfolds. Finally, when the stage crew quietly but deftly detaches the canvass from the floor and the ropes hang it up across the back of the stage there are muffled gasps in the theater.
It’s a total WOW!
It didn’t surprise to also learn in this post-performance discussion that Shen Wei’s artistic roots originally came from his work as a painter and a Chinese Opera performer. If you love the spectacle of opera— East or West-- you’ve come to the right place.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
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NB: Errata -- Proper spelling is BalletX (not Ballet X).
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About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
