The Dance Centre announces the recipients of the Isadora Awards and the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award

Vancouver – The achievements and the potential of BC’s dance artists were honoured at a ceremony held on April 28 at Scotiabank Dance Centre, as The Dance Centre announced Chengxin Wei as the recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award, and Wen Wei Wang, Alison Denham and Judith Garay as recipients of the Isadora Awards for Excellence in Choreography, Performance and Teaching respectively.

The Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award was established in memory of the pioneering educator who developed Simon Fraser University’s dance program. The biennial Award provides $5000 to assist an emerging artist between 19 and 35 years of age who demonstrates exceptional choreographic potential, to produce their work at Scotiabank Dance Centre in Vancouver. Chengxin Wei, already well known as a dancer with Ballet British Columbia, has also choreographed a number of works in recent years and will create a new piece to premiere in spring 2008. The recipient of the inaugural award was Amber Funk Barton in 2005.

The annual Isadora Awards, named after the great dance pioneer Isadora Duncan (1878-1927), were instituted by The Dance Centre in 1999 to recognize and celebrate the achievements of the dance profession in British Columbia. Members of the dance community are invited to nominate artists for the award, and an independent jury of professionals working in the field selects recipients based on specific criteria. Wen Wei  Wang’s award for Excellence in Choreography is for his acclaimed work Unbound which premiered at the Canada Dance Festival last year and is currently touring across the country. Dancer Alison Denham receives the award for Excellence in Performance, for her role in Unbound; and Judith Garay’s award for Excellence in Teaching acknowledges her inspiring work teaching and mentoring dance artists over many years, notably as Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University. They each receive an Isadora Award – a sculpture specially created by the eminent glass artist Mary Filer – and fully subsidized rehearsal space at Scotiabank Dance Centre to the value of $1,000, plus $500 cash. Previous Isadora recipients have included Susan Elliott, Kathleen McDonagh, Anne Cooper, Peter Bingham, Chick Snipper, Crystal Pite, Joe Laughlin, Jai Govinda and Ron Stewart.

Artist Biographies
A native of Dalian, China, Chengxin Wei graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy in 1997, where he studied classical Chinese dance for eleven years.  He subsequently worked for three years as principal dancer of the Guangdong Provincial Dance Theatre.  Since moving to Vancouver in 2000, Chengxin has appeared with various dance companies including Anatomica, Judith Marcuse Projects, Joe Ink, the Lorita Leung Dance Company, MovEnt, and Wen Wei Dance.  Chengxin also danced with Ballet British Columbia for five season, where he appeared in works by John Alleyne, Agnes De Mille, Dominique Dumais, Nicolo Fonte, Mark Godden, James Kudelka, Jiri Kylian, Crystal Pite, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, and Peter Wyss, among others. In 2004, Chengxin and Jessica Jone co-founded Moving Dragon, a contemporary dance company that focuses on cross-cultural fusion between Eastern and Western dance styles.  He has created numerous contemporary cross-cultural works including Lumina, Interplay and Yuan that have appeared at Dances for a Small Stage, the Connecting Community Dance Series and at the Dance Centre.  Moving Dragon will premiere a new work in September at the Infringing Dance Festival in Nanaimo.

Wen Wei Wang was born in China and began dancing at age 13. He began his professional career with the Lanzhou Song and Dance Company. After studying choreography at the Beijing PLA Arts and Dance Academy, he came to Canada in 1991 and performed with the Judith Marcuse Dance Company, later dancing with Ballet British Columbia for seven years. In 2000 he received the Clifford E. Lee Award for Choreography and created Snow, which was performed at the Banff Dance Festival and remounted for Alberta Ballet. He then choreographed works for Ballet Jorgen and Dancers Dancing. Tao (the Way), a full-length work, was commissioned by the 2003 Dancing on the Edge Festival, marking the beginning of his own company, Wen Wei Dance. Tao was also performed at the International Contemporary Dance Festival in Colombia. He then choreographed a full-length solo for himself, One Man's… which was presented at the Vancouver International Dance Festival, and later at the Dancing on the Edge. He collaborated and danced with Peter Bingham in Thirst. His latest work, Unbound, premiered at the Canada Dance Festival in 2006 and is currently touring across Canada.

Born and raised on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, Alison Denham moved to Vancouver to pursue professional dance training at Arts Umbrella and then the Ballet BC Mentor Program. She has worked with choreographers including Judith Marcuse, Paras Terezakis, Judith Garay, Wen Wei Wang, David Earle, D.A. Hoskins, Michael Trent, Robert Glumbeck, Andrea Nann, and Alvin Erasga Tolentino. From 2001-2005 she was a company member with Toronto based Dancemakers, performing works by artistic director Serge Bennathan and guest choreographers Marie-Josee Chartier, Julia Aplin, Shannon Cooney. Alison has been exploring choreography for the last few years and has presented pieces in Vancouver in the Chutzpah! Festival, 12 Minutes Max, RUSH Series and Arts Umbrella Dance Company; in Toronto in the In a White Room Series; in Victoria in the Upstairs Dances Series; and on the Sunshine Coast with the Coast Contemporary Dancers and KAliJo Dance Projects. In August 2004, she was a participant in the Ballet Jorgen of Canada Choreographic Workshop facilitated by Linda Rabin. She collaborated with Toronto filmmaker Geoff Pugen to create Remeo and Aerobia (BravoFact!) both which have been presented at film festivals across Canada. She directed Portion a dance film presented at the Moving Pictures Festival in Toronto, 2004. In April 2006 Alison was a semi-finalist performing a solo by Alvin Erasga Tolentino in the Premio Gugliemo Ebreo Choreographic Competition in Pesaro, Italy. Last summer she furthered her training at the ImpulsTanz Festival in Vienna, Austria. Alison is dancing with Wen Wei Dance and Co.ERASGA.

Judith Garay, a native of British Columbia, is the Artistic Director of Dancers Dancing, a Vancouver based contemporary dance repertory company, and an Associate Professor of Dance at Simon Fraser University in the School for the Contemporary Arts.   As a dancer she has been a member of companies in London, Paris and New York where she was a Principal Dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company.  She has choreographed more than forty works.  Her dances have been presented in Canada, the USA, England and Holland.  She is in great demand as a teacher and has taught professional company classes for Dancers Dancing, Ballet British Columbia, the Judith Marcuse Dance Company, the Martha Graham Dance Company, The Anthony Morgan Dance Company and the Yard Company as well as teaching and mentoring students and emerging dancers in many professional schools, studios, universities and colleges.

The Dance Centre is BC’s resource centre for dance. It provides resources, information and support to the dance profession; runs programs and activities for artists and the public; and operates Scotiabank Dance Centre, Canada’s flagship dance facility, in downtown Vancouver.
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The operations of The Dance Centre are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council, and the City of Vancouver through the Office of Cultural Affairs. Programs are also supported by the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the Province of BC through the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch. Official Hotel Sponsor: Holiday Inn Vancouver Downtown Hotel & Suites

The Dance Centre, Level 6, 677 Davie Street, Vancouver BC V6B 2G6  Tel 604 606 6400 Fax 604 606 6401 www.thedancecentre.ca