Artist finds the world is his stage

Path to success

Born in Yueyang, Hunan province, in 1968, Shen followed in the footsteps of his parents and began training as a local opera performer at the age of 9, which enabled him to learn singing, dancing, acting and martial arts. He also learned traditional Chinese painting at the age of 7. That experience allowed him to better understand traditional Chinese culture.

In 1989, he began modern dance training at the American Dance Festival's program at the Guangdong Dance Academy in China. In 1991, he became a founding member of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company.

In 1994, he won first prize in choreography and performance at a national modern dance competition in China, and then moved to New York after receiving a scholarship from the Nikolais/Louis Dance Theater Lab.

Soon, he turned his attention to filmmaking, while continuing to pursue innovation in dance theory, choreography and painting throughout the 1990s. In 2000, he founded his own dance company, the New York-based Shen Wei Dance Arts.

"The second month after arriving in Beijing, I started having workshops with dancers of China Oriental Performing Arts Group. For decades, I've developed my own training methods, and the dancers are very talented," Shen says.

China Oriental Performing Arts Group has produced the stage production Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting, which was premiered in Beijing in 2022 and toured around China with over 200 shows. It was one of the most popular and best-selling stage productions in the country last year.

"Chinese literature is one of the major literary heritages of the world, and Su Dongpo is definitely among the list of the greatest poets in the world," says Jing Xiaoyong, head of China Oriental Performing Arts Group.

"Shen is a great artist with unique individual style, and this new stage production will connect the culture and tradition from the past of China to the modern time."