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Moving Dragon

Moving Dragon is a Vancouver-based contemporary dance company that emphasizes cross-cultural exploration. Founded in 2004 by Chengxin Wei and Jessica Jone, the company seeks to journey through dance, stemming from traditional Asian roots and blooming towards contemporary thought. Along this journey, the body itself becomes a bridge between East and West. Moving Dragon has been featured at a variety of dance events, including the Dancing on the Edge Festival, the Dance Centre, Dances for a Small Stage, Dance Allsorts, the InFrinGinG Dance Festival in Nanaimo, and CorresponDANSE in Quebec City. Its repertoire of original contemporary cross-cultural work includes Yuan, Interplay, Triaspora and LuminUS.

photo: Peter Weiser

Jessica Jone

Jessica was born in Vancouver, and received her early Chinese dance training from her mother, Lorita Leung. She later went on to train professionally in Chinese classical and folk dance at the Beijing Dance Academy, and the Guangdong Dance School in China.  She is also a graduate of the contemporary dance program at Simon Fraser University.  Jessica is an accomplished dancer who has won numerous awards for performance and choreography including the Chairman’s Award at the Fourth Peach and Plum Dance Competition in Beijing, and two Best Choreography Awards at the North American Chinese Dance Competition. She is the vice-principal of the Lorita Leung Dance Academy, and a much sought-after guest teacher throughout British Columbia who has taught master classes at Simon Fraser University, the Dancers Transition Resource Centre, the Canadian Dance Teachers Association, Goh Ballet Academy, and the Dance Centre. She was a guest choreographer for Runaway Moon Theatre Company’s production of By the River, and has collaborated with Silk Road Music Ensemble and Mandala Arts and Culture Society.

photo: Peter Weiser

Chengxin Wei

A native of Dalian, China, Chengxin 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 numerous dance companies including Anatomica, Company Erasga, EDAM, Joe Ink, Judith Marcuse Projects, the Lorita Leung Dance Company, Mandala Arts and Culture, MovEnt, and Wen Wei Dance.  Hailed as a “powerhouse performer”(Georgia Straight), Chengxin also danced with Ballet British Columbia for six seasons, 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 2007, Chengxin was the recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award.  He is also the 2009 recipient of the David Leighton Arts Fellowship Award, administered by the National Arts Centre.

photo: Adam Smith

Media Artists

Kenneth Newby

Kenneth Newby is a media artist and composer with research interests in the areas of computational poetics, interdisciplinary media performance, cultural encoding and interaction design. His practice includes the creation of interactive computer systems for live media performance, animation, music and installation as well as software tools for composition and design. He has worked as an audio software designer for Electronic Arts, interaction design consultant for Pixar Animation Studios and producer for City of Tribes records. His music is published in a variety of compact disc editions and his writings on new media theory and practice are published in several journals and book chapters. Kenneth teaches in the Film, Video & Integrated Media; Digital Visual Arts; and Foundation areas at Emily Carr Institute of Art, Design and Media.

Aleksandra Dulic

Aleksandra Dulic is media artist and theorist working at the intersections of interactive multimedia installation and live performance with research foci in cross-cultural media performance, interactive animation and computational poetics. She is active as an artist, writer, educator and curator with an active international teaching, presentation and publishing practice. Her artistic work is widely presented internationally in exhibitions, festivals, and television broadcasts. These works include animated media performances, films, interactive computer installations, software tools for interactive animation, as well as interdisciplinary collaborations with composers and artists in various disciplines, such as music, dance, theatre, poetry, and shadow play. Aleksandra has received a number of awards for her short animated films and interactive media artworks.

Composers

Michael Vincent

Billed as “one of Canada’s most audacious new composers” (The Western Front), Michael has worked in a number of contexts spanning from concert music to large-scale theatre productions, collaborating with the Juno nominated Orchid Ensemble, plunderphonics composer John Oswald, and famed author Douglas Coupland. Michael is best known for his pioneering work developing a unique method of speech melody composition based upon the manipulations of pre-recorded text fragments, as well as the use of mixed live and pre-recorded media. His compositions are performed frequently throughout Canada, as well as internationally. In 2003, he was honoured with the Allan Award in Electroacoustic composition, and in 2004, the Simon Fraser University Arts Service Award. Michael holds advanced degrees from Concordia University and Simon Fraser University where his teachers included Barry Truax, David MacIntyre, Owen Underhill, Tim Brady, Kevin Austin and Rosemary Mountain. He recently moved to Toronto to work towards his doctorate in music composition at the University of Toronto under Christos Hatzis. In addition to his work as a composer, Michael is also a writer and editor for Canada’s largest classical music magazine’s La Scena Musicale.

Mark Armanini

Armanini, a native Vancouverite, studied composition with Elliot Weisgarber and piano with Robert Rodgers at UBC, graduating with a MMus. in 1984. In 1990, Mark began composing for various combinations of Oriental and Western instrumentation: the crowning achievement being four concerti recorded with the Latvian National Symphony with Vivian Xia, Heidi Krutzen and the Khac Chi Ensemble as soloists under the direction of John Zoltek, released as Rain in the Forest on the Centredisc's label.

In 2000, Mark traveled to Taipei, in 2003 to Beijing and Shanghai as part of composer exchanges, in 2006 to the Nanjing Jazz Festival, and in 2007 to Wuhan to study the Marquis Yi Bell Set, with performances and meetings in each city. With an extensive catalogue of over 60 works, Mark celebrates his musical association with intercultural ensembles, among them the Orchid Ensemble, who named their debut CD Heartland after its title track, written by Armanini. Mark is presently the acting Artistic Director of the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra and Project Co-ordinator with the BC Chinese Music Ensemble. http://www.armanini.ca

Jin Zhang

Zhang is the Music Director and Conductor of Vancouver Philharmonic Symphony Society, New Westminster Symphony Orchestra (since 1992) and the Vancouver Youth Symphony (Intermediate) Orchestra, and Westcoast Choir Society. Zhang’s compositions have been performed by Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and numerous ensembles and choirs. His music is often heard on BBC, CBC, VTV and other networks.
In 2006, he was selected by the Canadian Music Centre to be part of the new online initiative entitled "Composer Portraits - Influences of Many Musics", which highlights the contributions of Canadian composers from other countries. Born in China, Zhang received musical education at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo. Zhang studied conducting with Prof. Morihiro Okabe, maestro Kazuyoshi Akiyama and Seiji Ozawa.

Yawen V. Wang

Stage Manager

Katherine Redekop

Kathy enjoys the spontaneity and variety that her freelancing career has entailed. This is the second show that she has had the opportunity to work on with Moving Dragon and it has been a pleasure to work with such a wonderful team. Besides stage managing for several dance companies and festivals in Vancouver and abroad, Kathy also works as a lighting technician and follow-spot operator at a number of live music and performance venues in the city. She can also be found on film sets or creatively collaborating with small independent theatre companies from time to time.

Lighting Designer

Kimberly L. Plough