ARTS

ARTS Impulses drive Kwan to dance in Chinese garden

by Charlie Smith

Vancouver dancer Ziyian Kwan realizes that as a choreographer, she can be remarkably impulsive. That was on display in 2010 when she danced on four consecutive weekends outside the Gene Cafe at the intersection of Kingsway and Main Street to raise awareness about arts cutbacks.

“I had an idea and went with it,” Kwan recently told the Straight by phone. “And it happened.”

Last year, in a similar vein, she held a peaceful dance action outside the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. That time, she used her free-flowing and uninhibited movements to oppose anti-Asian hatred that had arisen during the pandemic. The protest reflected her view that art is “always political”.

When Kwan’s nonprofit society, Dumb Instrument Dance, needed space last summer, she quickly decided to rent a pop-up space at 336 West Pender Street. Called Morrow, it includes a little gallery in the back, artists in residence, and a studio in the front.

“We sell things,” she said. “We have events there. So, again, this was a very impulsive initiative that was in response to the community and the circumstances. And it’s just taken off in an unexpected way.”

One of her more recent impulsive ideas was to stage a dance performance at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. Called Dreaming of Koi, it was created by Kwan and fellow dancer Rianne Svelnis and taiko artist Kage and will premiere at this July’s Dancing on the Edge festival. Dreaming of Koi is described as “a declaration of wonder for the flora and fauna that exists within and without”.

According to Kwan, the audience will experience an intersection between themselves, the artists, and the natural environment in the spacious garden.

“It’s such a sanctuary and an oasis,” Kwan said. “There are so many species there alongside the performers.”

Kwan pointed out that ticket holders to the shows will also be able to see a new exhibit in the garden’s gallery, Rivers Have Mouths, which honours stories of relations between Indigenous people and Chinese pioneers.

“It’s exciting to have something that has so much gravitas and meaning and history in the same space at the same time as we’re doing our small experiment,” Kwan said with a touch of modesty.

Kwan has been dancing for 35 years and choreographing shows for the past seven. As she has become more experienced as a choreographer, she’s striving to become more conscious about her impulses, as well as the choices that she’s making in response to what’s happening in the world.

“I’ve been realizing a lot in the last year that art is a medicine,” Kwan said. “And we’re not going to get through any of the horrors that exist—whether they’re around the pandemic or around oppressions of people—without art.” g

Dumb Instrument Dance artistic director Ziyian Kwan (right) and dance artist Rianne Svelnis plan to perform alongside various plant species in Dreaming of Koi. Photo by David Cooper.

Dancing on the Edge presents Dreaming of Koi at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden at 5:30 p.m. from July 8 to 10 and from July 12 to 15.

Pandemic enables Kuebler to explore loneliness

by Charlie Smith

Vancouver dance artist Shay Kuebler took notice when former British prime minister Theresa May appointed a “minister for loneliness” in 2018. In a phone interview with the Straight, the veteran choreographer and dancer said that the title, minister of loneliness, sounded so surreal to him.

But he soon learned that social isolation and loneliness were two of the leading causes of disease in the U.K. As he studied this issue more deeply, he realized that it would be a worthwhile focus for a dance project, which he has called M.O.I. - Momentum of Isolation. It will have its B.C. premiere as a 45-minute work-in-progress at the Dancing on the Edge Festival.

“I knew that it was a really important topic to talk about,” Kuebler told the Straight by phone. “Also, I felt like it’s accessible to almost all of us in some way. There are definitely different layers. All I’m going to do is try to bring a perspective that I have and try to bring a perspective that my artists have.”

It will be presented live and online, and each performance will include eight dancers, including Kuebler. He has been working with these artists for the past two or three years with his company, Radical System Art. The pandemic offered plenty of time for online research, enabling the entire company to watch videos and read up on different aspects of loneliness.

Solos in the show will explore the experience of social isolation from various perspectives. According to Kuebler, group performances act as a counterpoint.

“They framework reasons and questions of why these solos or why these ideas or why isolation and loneliness can happen,” he said. “It’s actually quite a big ensemble piece.”

Before Kuebler became one of Vancouver’s marquee contemporary dancers, he was a martial-arts and theatre artist, as well as a tap and hip-hop dancer. He said that this explains why his work is often so imbued with so much physicality and theatricality.

He’s also a big fan of satire because he thinks it’s a “really important tool to talk about serious topics”. In addition, he believes that satire plays with the expectations of audiences.

So, is there room for satire in a work-in-progress focusing on loneliness and isolation?

“I grew up watching lots of standup comedy,” Kuebler replied. “I always felt that comedy was a great vehicle at times to bring forward things that we need to have conversations around. I think it just has to be done delicately— strategically—you know. Of course, the whole show is not a comedy show.”

He also sees connections between social isolation, the digital world, and the rise of artificial intelligence. According to Kuebler, these themes will play out in the imagery of the show, which will be presented in an episodic format.

“My character, specifically, has a very clear through line, and that’s really important,” Kuebler explained. “I think it helps bookend…these episodes in the work.” g

Radical System Art director and choreographer Shay Kuebler likes injecting some satire into his shows. Photo by Joyce Torres.

Dancing on the Edge presents Radical System Art’s M.O.I. - Momentum of Isolation at the Firehall Arts Centre at 7 p.m. on July 10. It will be streamed on YouTube at 7 p.m. on July 11.

ARTS Calligraphy leaves mark on Carter’s choreography

by Carlito Pablo

Shion Skye Carter learned Japanese calligraphy before she discovered dance. e artist was a young girl and recent transplant to Canada when she took up the ancient handwriting art form in lessons at the Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre in Burnaby.

Carter was about 10 years old at the time, a student at the centre’s Gladstone Japanese Language School.

Her mother is Japanese and her father is Canadian. She was born in Japan, and the family moved to Canada when she was six.

“I did it for a few years and I stopped taking those lessons when I graduated from the Japanese language school, and then I went on to connect with dance and movement and I fell in love with it,” Carter told the Straight in a phone interview.

In 2019, she resumed lessons with her former calligraphy teacher, Yoko Murakami, a er she completed her ne-arts degree in dance and kinesiology at SFU.

“I was transitioning from being a student in university to becoming a freelance artist, and I was really trying to nd what I connected with from a very internal place with my art and what I wanted to create my projects about,” Carter said.

One thing that satis ed that yearning was her Japanese ancestry and culture.

With this, she emerged as a dance artist and choreographer whose practice is profoundly shaped by calligraphy, with other elements fused in as well, like sculpture, sound, and video.

“ ere’s a dance that takes place through the brush onto the paper, creating this beautiful shape of ink, and that shape is what I try to recreate in my movement when I bring my calligraphy practice into my choreography,” Carter said.

She explained that in their pure essence, calligraphy and dance share a common character: clarity and peace of mind.

“With calligraphy, there’s a gestural sense with the use of your hands and your arms when you are writing the calligraphy words out on the paper,” Carter said. “You’re really taking putting all your focus and attention into your hands and the way that you’re writing, how much pressure you’re applying with your brush onto the paper, all of these minute details, and dance is really similar in that way,” she continued. e Vancouver-based artist noted that there are some other types of dance or choreography “where you’re kind of wild and you don’t have any control”.

“But I think the way that I’ve been interpreting calligraphy in choreography, there’s a lot of focus involved. It’s almost like I feel like I’m in a meditational mode, and I’m very particular about movements, especially what my hands and arms are doing,” she said.

In dance, Carter imagines the words she writes in kanji, or Japanese characters, and interprets them through motion.

“I create them with my body. So if I pretend that my hand is the brush, how can I write that word in the air or on the oor? Or how can I write that word almost inside of my body, and make it more an internal movement with my torso and my chest?” e intersection between calligraphy and dance also extends to her daily routine.

“One thing that I personally fell in love with again when I [re]started calligraphy was this ritualistic, meditative aspect of the practice,” Carter related.

In calligraphy, one goes through a number of steps, starting from when a practitioner sits at the table, sets up the paper, prepares the sumi, or ink, and some more preparation before actually writing something with a brush.

“ inking about those aspects,” Carter said, “with dance I feel like I have my daily routine, where I always have the movements that I use to warm up in the morning and before rehearsal or a dance class. I have this kind of ritual that I go through, and the same steps to get ready for the day.” is year’s 33rd annual Dancing on the Edge festival, which opens on July 8, features a lm package, and it includes a short feature by Carter and Vancouver-based Japanese calligraphy artist Kisyuu.

The film is titled “Flow Tide” and was done collaboratively from their respective homes, without the two meeting in person at the time because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I had my partner, who I live with, lm my dancing,” Carter related, referring to Stefan Nazarevich, an interdisciplinary artist with whom she cofounded the “olive theory” duo.

“Kisyuu got her partner to lm her calligraphy and sent it to me. I edited the videos together, and in my dancing, I’m responding to her brushstroke as I play the video and watch it while I’m dancing.”

Calligraphy is also a part of the newyear tradition in Carter’s family.

“On January 1st, we get together as a family and we all do calligraphy together— my parents, my sister, and I—and we write our goals for the year ahead,” she said. g

Dance artist Shion Skye Carter and calligrapher Kisyuu collaborated for the short film “Flow Tide”, which will be screened as part of the Dancing on the Edge festival taking place in Vancouver.

Dancing on the Edge will stream “Flow Tide” on demand between July 8 and 20 as part of the $25 Festival Film Package.

Bowie painting found in thrift store nets $100K

by Martin Dunphy

A1997 painting by famed recording artist David Bowie that was found in a donation centre for household goods in rural Ontario has sold for more than $100,000. e artwork, a 9.75- by 8-inch portrait of an unnamed person, was purchased for $5 by someone looking through a pile of discarded goods at the thri store outside a land ll near South River, Ontario, about a three-hour drive north of Toronto, according to auctioneers Cowley Abbott.

Cowley Abbott did not identify the painting’s consignor but described them in a June 11 news release as “astonished upon viewing a label which read ‘David Bowie’ and realizing it was the signature of the artist inscribed on the reverse”.

e painting—described in a label on its back as an “acrylic and computer collage on canvas” and titled D Head XLVI—is part of a series of 47 portraits painted by Bowie between 1994 and 1997 and called “Dead Heads” (or “D Heads”).

On the painting’s back, next to Bowie’s signature, which the Toronto-based Cowley Abbott said it had veri ed with an “art and signature specialist in the United Kingdom”, is the date “97”. e auction company said in a later June 24 release that the portrait sparked an international “bidding frenzy” during an online auction from June 14 to 24, nally selling for $108,120, about 10 times the original estimate of $9,000 to $12,000. e nal price also more than doubled a C$39,000 2016 United Kingdom sale price of a Dead Heads series painting.

Bowie—a hugely in uential English musician, songwriter, singer, and actor who sold more than 100 million records worldwide and who died of cancer in 2016 at the age of 69—studied art in high school and was well known for painting and for collecting art.

An auction a er his death of two-thirds of his personal collection, which included works by Henry Moore and Jean-Michel Basquiat, realized about $41.5 million.

Bowie’s “Dead Heads” series featured unnamed subjects who have variously been described as his friends, acquaintances, band members, and even some selfportraits. g