Presented with PuSh International Performing Arts Festival

Deciphers


Naishi Wang (Canada) & Jean Abreu (UK)
January 26 + 27, 2024 | 8pm
January 28, 2024 | 2pm * Talkback to Follow
Scotiabank Dance Centre (677 Davie Street, Vancouver BC)
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Choreographers Naishi Wang and Jean Abreu come together in a new international collaboration exploring UK/Canada and Brazil/China cultural references related to poetry and vocal traditions of folk music. This cultural exchange will create a powerful physical journey and performance that demonstrates how the body can be used as an extraordinary tool for linguistic expression. This duet will investigate cultural links, post-colonial histories, the embodiment of the migrant experience, and the transforming nature of human identity.

“I seek to utilize the body as a tool to ask profound direct questions about the continual transforming nature of human identity.” - Jean Abreu

Naishi Wang

About
Based in culturally diverse Toronto, and born in Changchun, China mixed with Chinese, North Korean and Mongolian ancestry. Naishi Wang observes and studies the underlying motivations of the body’s movements and the emotions it conveys. Renowned for his exceptional improvisations, which he turns into incarnations of bodily meaning, Wang is also a practicing visual artist. Part of the MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) program in February 2019 and also presented in Halifax and Hamburg, Germany. His solo Taking Breath demonstrated his interest in intimate forms of bodily communication, a subject he takes up again in the duet Face to Face which focused on our new modes of virtual communication and the factors that act in concert to convey our intentions in even the simplest exchanges. Naishi is currently collaborating with UK-based artist Jean Abreu entitled Deciphers and a trio named Eyes, Wide Open. He is an artist in residency at the Citadel, Harbourfront Centre and TO Live and has been awarded Les Respirations du FTA (2021), Small Scale Creation Fund from CanDance (2021) and Chalmers Arts Fellowship from Ontario Arts Council (2022).

https://www.naishi.dance/

Jean Abreu

About
Born in Brazil, Jean Abreu moved to London in 1996 after receiving a scholarship to study at Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance. Jean Abreu’s movement practice comes from his ongoing interest in utilizing the body as a powerful tool to articulate arresting emotional and complex ideas through dance.  Creative & digital technology has consistently featured within and challenged Jean’s varied performance work. He founded Jean Abreu Dance in 2009. Across his career Jean has been a movement director for fashion magazines and global advertising campaigns including TikTok, Nike, OutThere Magazine. Jean has taught extensively his movement practice in the UK and abroad in renowned dance organizations and Universities across the globe.

https://www.jeanabreudance.com/

Credits:

Concept, choreography, performing: Naishi Wang and Jean Abreu

Dramaturgy and outside eye: Guy Cools and Ginelle Chagnon

Deciphers is co-produced: Centre national des Arts (Ottawa) + Harbourfront Center (Toronto) + PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (Vancouver) + MAI Montréal, Arts Interculturels (Montreal) + CanDance (Toronto) + Dance 4 (Nottingham, UK) + Canada Council for the Arts.

Presented with 

Top and middle photos by Maya Yoncali. Bottom photo by Omer Yukseker.