culturally defined celebrates studio

By Bridget Stringer-Holden

Culturally Defined dance studio’s founder Chris Wong didn’t take his first dance class until he was 20 years old.

Wong moved to Canada from Hong Kong when he was 12. “It was definitely a situation where there’s a lot of, for lack of better words, teenage rage,” Wong says in a phone interview with the Straight. “So I got into martial arts, which was a good outlet for it, but in some ways it ignites it a little bit.”

Wong began taking weekly classes and immersing himself in street dance and hip-hop culture—particularly the ways dance can be used as a tool to bridge divides.

“It has to do with....people looking for ways to escape and resolve conflict that would usually be resolved with violence,” he explains. “A lot of the culture of dance came from people just finding alternative ways to express themselves—that’s how dance battles came to be.”

Learning all of that helped Wong understand the conflict in his own life and how to channel that energy elsewhere.

“It went from a hobby to becoming something that I just basically needed to keep my life in balance,” he says, eventually making the leap from student to teacher.

While teaching, Wong discovered many newbies’ misconception that successful dancers needed to be young and have a lot of free time.

This led him to create his own company. It started as a place for younger semi-professional dancers, but five years ago it shifted to provide a space for everyday adults to pursue dance.

Wong changed the company’s name to Culturally Defined—operating out of spaces across Vancouver, without a home base of its own. “It’s cool because the company and its demographic has kind of grown with me,” he says.

The studio provides a variety of classes that can easily fit into peoples’ schedules and let them approach learning in an accessible way.

“Adults learn different—we learn different from kids, it’s just the way it is,” Wong says. “We’re still very capable of learning—it’s just the methods and how we approach it.”

One program, signature progressive training, lasts four months and wraps up in a showcase. Recent shows include a Top Gun–themed performance, and another called “You Got Served.” This summer’s event will be a tribute to iconic Super Bowl Halftime performances.

Wong started searching for a permanent space about three years ago, and was set to sign a lease when COVID-19 hit. The team put everything on hold, but recently acquired a space in Mount Pleasant: Cul- turally Defined’s first permanent home.

“Having this space, finally having a home for all our dancers, has been insane,” he says, breathing a sigh of relief. “From week one, we were all saying how weirdly comfortable we are. It feels like we’ve been here the whole time.”

The new studio is exactly as he envisioned it: covered in photos. “As you walk through, the entire space is basically highlighted with the history of everyone that’s been in the company,” he says.

The history of Culturally Defined, and its community, is on those walls—including people who have stayed with the company for the entire past decade of its existence. “It just helps remind me how much dance is meant to stay with us forever,” Wong says, smiling. GS

Culturally Defined’s showcase, “Culturally Defined presents Halftime Show,” takes place on June 17 and 18 at Fortune Sound Club.

By Yasmine Shemesh

Witch Prophet, the moniker of artist

Ayo Leilani, makes music inspired by her life. On the singer-songwriter’s last album, 2020’s DNA Activation, she dug into her identity as a queer, East African woman over a fusion of R&B, hip hop, and Ethio-jazz.

Leilani’s newest effort, Gateway Experience, channels energy into offsetting the anxiety that accompanies her longtime struggle with focal seizures, which includes symptoms like dizziness, déjà vu, and memory loss.

“It was an album for me to focus more on something to keep my mind busy and to possibly help me shift my health into a better realm,” she tells the Straight, speaking on the line from Caledon, where she lives, about 45-minutes north of Toronto.

A jumping off point came in 2021, when a report about the “Gateway Experience”, published by the CIA in 1983, was declassified and resurfaced online. The report detailed the US Army’s investigation into how to alter states of consciousness and transcend time and space. For Leilani, it felt like validation. “I’ve always believed in astral projection, other dimensions, psychic abilities, and the ability to heal oneself through thought or through sound,” she says. “I couldn’t prove that it was something that, you know, people have invested money into scientific research to figure out what was going on.”

Leilani frequently has lucid dreams and began reading up on it around Grade 7, when she started realizing what was happening. She learned about repetition, how it helps

By Chandler Walter

Mary Ancheta is no stranger to the stage.

Having previously performed as keyboardist for Vancouver artists Kimmortal, Amanda Sum, and Ashleigh Ball, Ancheta and her keys have been in front of many an audience, but always off to the side.

Which is why the upcoming Vancouver International Jazz Festival is such a special one for the now-bandleader of the Mary Ancheta Quartet.

“It’s certainly different,” Ancheta says in a phone interview with the Straight the mind remember, and that repeating a sentence daily can slip it into the subconscious. On “Lucid”, the opening track to Gateway Experience, Leilani does just this as she sings a line—“This is a dream”—for nearly two minutes. It’s meant to help others have lucid dreams, she explains, a sort of trigger into a dreamlike state.

Delivered over what sounds like gently rolling waves, the mantra immediately casts a meditative spell on the listener.

In fact, Gateway Experience’s entire musical landscape—produced by Leilani’s wife and business partner, SUN SUN—has that kind of engulfing effect. Moving between textures of jazz, neo-soul, and trip-hop, alongside live trumpet and piano, it’s lush but minimal, and absolutely gorgeous.