Moving Dragon

Moving Dragon is a Vancouver-based contemporary dance company that emphasizes cross-cultural exploration. Founded in 2004 by Jessica Jone and Chengxin Wei, 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, the Connecting Community Dance Series at Moberly Arts Centre and at the Roundhouse Community Centre in Vancouver. Its repertoire of original contemporary cross-cultural work includes Yuan, Interplay, Lumina I and II, Triaspora and a new work to premiere at the Dance Centre in Spring 2008.

Jessica Jone

Jessica was born in Vancouver, and received her early 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 trained in Western dance, and is a graduate of the contemporary dance program at Simon Fraser University. She is an accomplished dancer and seasoned performer who has won many awards for performance and choreography, including the Chairman’s Award at the Fourth Peach and Plum Dance Competition in Beijing, and two Choreography Awards at the North American Chinese Dance Competition.

In addition to her extensive performing experience, Jessica is also the vice-principal of the Lorita Leung Dance Academy, and is a much sought-after guest teacher throughout the Lower Mainland. She has taught various master classes in Chinese dance at Simon Fraser University, the Dancers Transition Resource Centre, the Canadian Dance Teachers Association, the Goh Ballet Academy, the Dance Centre, and was also guest choreographer for the Runaway Moon Theatre Company’s production of By the River.

Chengxin Wei

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 Ballet British Columbia, Anatomica, the Lorita Leung Dance Company, MovEnt, Wen Wei Dance and Company Erasga.

In addition, he has created numerous contemporary cross-cultural works that have appeared at Dances for a Small Stage, the Connecting Community Dance Series and at the Dance Centre. Most recently, Chengxin won the 2007 Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award, through which he will create a new Moving Dragon work to premiere at the Dance Centre in Spring 2008.

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, theorist and experimental filmmaker working at the intersections of multimedia and live performance with research foci in computational poetics, animation and cross-cultural media performance. She has received a number of awards for her short animated films; her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, she is active as a curator, a writer, an educator, teaching courses, presenting and publishing papers, across North America, Australia, Europe and Asia. She received her Ph.D. from the School of Interactive Art and Technology, Simon Fraser University in 2006 and is currently a Postdoctoral research fellow at the Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre, University of British Columbia.

Composers

Michael Vincent

As a young Canadian artist, Michael has been composing unique pieces that defy categorization. Billed as “one of Canada’s most audacious new composers” (The Western Front), Michael has collaborated in a number of contexts spanning from concert music to large-scale theatre productions. His most noted projects include collaborations with plunderphonics composer John Oswald, choreographers Jennifer Mascall and Marla Eist, experimental filmmaker Amanda Christie, videographer Jacqueline Levitin, spoken word artists Barbara Adler, Brendan McLeod and RC Weslowski,  and famed Generation X author Douglas Coupland. He was honoured with the Allan Award in Electroacoustic composition (2003), and the SFU arts service award (2004). Michael holds advanced degrees from Concordia University (2004) and Simon Fraser University (2006), is currently teaching theory and musicianship at Simon Fraser University, and lives with his wife in North Vancouver BC, Canada.

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 Vivian Xia, Heidi Krutzen and the Khac Chi Ensemble as soloists, all recorded in Riga Latvia with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra in June 2003. In 2000 Mark traveled to Taipei and in 2003 to Beijing and Shanghai as part of composer exchanges, performances and meetings in each city. With an extensive catalogue of over 60 works Mark is building on his Vancouver roots with the release of his second CD Green and Gold, a collection of intercultural chamber music featuring some of Vancouver's finest performers. Mark was the President of the Vancouver Pro Musica, and he is on Faculty at Capilano College.

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.

Ya-wen Vivienne Wang

Recipient of the explorPERFORMANCE Award 2005 (a CBC TV and explorASIAN initiative), Wang has enjoyed traveling many different artistic pathways: composer, music director, collaborative pianist, interdisciplinary performer, TV music program host. With her clownish performance work, she has been described as the Asian female Buster Keaton. For some reviewers, watching her is akin to witnessing a dancer at the keyboard. Wang’s original solo work Excursions (1998) won a Jessie Richardson Award nomination for Outstanding Original Musical.

A radio version was later commissioned and broadcast by the CBC Radio. Her orchestral composition, The Difficult Mountain Paths of Szechwan (1992), was selected by the Taiwan Provincial Symphony Orchestra and Asian-Pacific Composers’ Conference in New Zealand in 1993. She received a Canada Council Grant for the creation of her first cross-cultural opera The Peach Project and was nominated for the Future Generation’s Millennium Award (2000).

Stage Manager

Stanley Ma

Stanley Ma graduated from Simon Fraser University with a BFA in Theatre Production and Design. Since graduating, he has lit and stage managed for a variety of shows and companies in town including: Electric Aura, Judith Marcuse Projects, MovEnt, and Four Brothers Entertainment. In the summer, he worked as an assistant to lighting designer for THE FAIR at Pacific National Exhibition (PNE). He also worked as assistant stage manager for the Chutzpah Festival 2007, and was on Holland America ï ¹ Šs ms Zaandam as the head lighting tech and stage manager. In 2005, he was invited by an international company Sight, Sound & Action as an assistant technical director for a national tour for SENSES.

Lighting Designer

Kimberly L. Plough

Kimberly L. Plough has been designing in Vancouver for over ten years. Attracted to the experimental style associated with contemporary dance, she has focused primarily on this genre. Her motivations in design are the interplay between light and shadow, the boldness of carving isolated spaces and the poetry of following the dance in rhythm and theme. Working with Moving Dragon, the Orchid Ensemble and video artists has been a pleasure both in concept development and execution of the design.