YU WEI Bio for Programing

          Praised for being a “Special artist and a gifted sensitive dancer,” and “a brilliant dance star,” Yu Wei is a prodigiously talented choreographer and dancer from China whose captivating dance visions have been holding American audience spellbound

          Satisfied audiences everywhere have been enthralled by Yu Wei’s dance style, which integrates Chinese traditional and folk dance as well as western ballet and modern dance tradition with powerful short films to create a performance of vivid imagery and artistic power. Influenced by the synergy between dance, poetry and music that flourished during the Tang Dynasty, Yu Wei’s dance art is both symbolic and expository in nature. At times the work casts the dancer as a central figure in a story; other times the dancer is interacting with forces of nature, or embodying an emotion or natural movement.

         Yu Wei has won numerous awards and recognition in her native China. Since coming to America in 2000, she has performed in dozens of venues including the Manhattan Center in New York City, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Her interactive educational workshops and residency program on Chinese culture and Asian dance aesthetic are available for all ages. “Intervals,” the award winning series of films that depicts the artistic and cultural background of her dances, is available on DVD. After viewing her performance at the 2004 Philadelphia Fringe Festival dance critic Merilyn Jackson of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote, “Yu Wei took everyone’s breath away with her dance ‘Lotus – Burst of Pure Dream.’ Lying on her back with her head to the audience, she depicted how a lotus unfolds. It was pure beauty.”

         As a little girl, Yu Wei was selected by the Wuhan Song and Dance Theater Academy to study of a broad curriculum of dance based on Chinese classical, traditional, folk dance and ballet. After graduating, she joined the Wuhan Company and soon became its principal dancer. After relocating to Beijing, Yu Wei began her long study and collaboration with nationally renowned dance master Zhang Ke. She was the lead dancer of National Ballets "Lijiang River Sentiment" and "Yao Shan Flame". Her dance collection has been performed in all of China’s major cities and broadcast on National Centre Television.

         Since coming to live in Philadelphia in February 2000, she had the Yu Wei Dance Collection selected for the rosters of Philadelphia’s Musicopia and the Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour (PennPAT). She has received grant support and recognition from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Leeway Foundation, and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Anette John-Hall has written, “Such a beautiful dancer. There are strains of ballet, folk and modern dance throughout her program – She is adept at them all. With her disproportionately long hands that flutter like a bird, Yu Wei’s dancing is all fluidity and grace.”

         In a special message to her audience, Yu Wei says, “As a professional dancer and choreographer, I have been studying and performing dance since childhood. I grew up and studied dance in China and was fortunate enough to study with the most esteemed masters and collaborate in the development of the art of the solo dance – both as an uniquely expressive modern form and as a revival of classical solo forms prevalent in the Han and Tang dynasties of more than a thousand years ago. My life in dance has transported me into a special world in which I’ve been privileged to follow the path that leads me closer to my goal of expressing the beauty in life in the form of dance. I want to share my knowledge and experience of dance with other people, and bring the difference and richness of Chinese dance art to the western world.”