The 27th annual Dancing on the Edge Festival will take place from July 2 to 11 at various venues in Vancouver. The festival features contemporary dance performances from over 20 dance companies. Colleen Lanki, artistic director of TomoeArts, is set to debut her performance of Weaver Woman, a retelling of a classic Chinese folk tale through contemporary Kabuki techniques.
The Woman (Collen Lanki) and The Man (Matthew Romantini).| Photo by Trevan Wong.
Lanki studied theatre at York University and then decided to travel to Japan for six months to teach English and watch theatre. Little did she know that she would live there for seven years. While in Japan, Lanki met her instructor, master dancer Fujima Yuko, who taught her the art of Kabuki, a classical Japanese dance. After completing graduate school in Hawaii, Lanki came back to Vancouver and started her company.
“We [TomoeArts] produce, teach and present Japanese arts, mainly Noh and Kabuki,” explains Lanki. “We use aesthetics and contemporary forms of Kabuki techniques, motifs and movement patterns.”
The inspiration behind the performance came 10 years ago when Lanki met Miseli Jeon, a PhD student at the University of British Columbia who translated Weaver Women, a short story written by Korean feminist O-Chonghui in the 70s.
Lanki says the Weaver Woman is a retelling of the well known Chinese folk tale of the cowherd and weaver girl who fall in love. They anger the Gods by not doing their jobs anymore and are separated by the Milky Way. From then on, they are allowed to meet only on the seventh day of the seventh month of each year.
“In the retelling, the woman waits for her husband to come home, but he never does, and readers never know what is going on,” says Lanki, who also choreographed the dance.
Lanki says that in the story the details of the husband are vague and left to the imagination of the readers.
“We are not sure if he’s dead or if he’s the man she sees crossing the plank everyday,” says Lanki.
A culturally influenced performance
Lanki and Yi jointly play the role of The Woman in Weaver Woman.| Photo by Trevan Wong.
Lanki and actor-playwright Maki Yi both play the role of The Woman: Yi verbally expresses The Woman’s thoughts and Lanki physically expresses her memories and dreams. Yi, a Korean native, speaks both English and Korean in her role.
“We treat the language musically so it is not a loss if you don’t understand Korean or Chinese,” says Lanki. “You wouldn’t lose the energy of the story because of the language.”
“The show is layered with different cultural elements, which make it all the more rich,” says Yi.
As an actor and playwright from a visual minority, Yi is particularly in tune with creating works that focus on culture, finding one’s own identity and challenging perceptions.
“I had the opposite experience of Colleen,” says Yi. “I went to Japan for three years and then moved to Canada.”
After studying theatre at the University of Regina and working in various places, she met Lanki, who was looking for a stage manager at the time. The two have worked together ever since to make Weaver Woman
a reality.
The dance is set against a backdrop of Japanese watercolour painting and calligraphy by Etsu Essence Inoue, and includes German-inspired costumes by Ines Ortner and Chinese music composed and sung by Lan Tung. Tung, who also plays the erhu, sings in Chinese at various parts in the performance and has selected and rearranged traditional and folk music based on the Weaver Woman story. She was also commissioned to compose new music for the performance.
Dancer-actor Matthew Romantini joins them on stage in the role of The Man.
“We would really like to tour this at other venues or take it to Korea,” says Lanki when asked about her future plans.
Weaver Woman, at the Scotiabank Dance Centre from July 3–5. For tickets and information, please visit www.dancingontheedge.org.
