Dance in tune with a wider audience

The acclaimed choreographer worked on the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. He choreographed the breathtakingly beautiful dance piece, Scroll, in which dancers performed on a constant changing LED scroll of Chinese ink-and-wash paintings, depicting the evolution of China since ancient times, giving the audience a visual feast that served up colorful Chinese culture through dance.

Shen notes that the show Dance Smash is helping to inform audiences about distinctive features and the strength of each dance type. It "educates the audience in what makes a particular dance style unique" as the dances are arranged by different genres, and separately illustrated by dancers and then discussed by experts after each dance.

"The show is a refreshing reminder of all that makes dance beautiful," says Shen, who was born into an artistic family in Central China's Hunan province in 1968. His father worked in a local opera troupe and he grew up practicing Chinese traditional painting, calligraphy and contemporary dance. He moved to New York in 1995 on a scholarship from the Nikolais/Louis Dance Lab and founded his own company Shen Wei Dance Arts in 2000, which has visited 138 cities in 33 countries. He frequently travels to New York, Paris and cities in China to promote his different projects of dance, exhibitions and workshops.

"Some of the dancers in the show are very talented. Their performance stimulates the viewers' imagination," Shen says. "What they need is more openings to a wider range of genres rather than their own specialty dance type and to explore their physical possibilities."

Shen's dream for the future is that China can have its own hit dance company.

He explains: "Many countries are known for their dance companies, for example, the famous Mariinsky Theater in St Petersburg. I hope that China will have a great dance company, which can represent the country's culture."