Dance review: Subtly and sensuously, Two evokes the yearning for connection
Wen Wei Wang’s duet at the Dancing on the Edge Festival speaks to pandemic-era loneliness
Calder White (left) and Justin Calvadores appear in Wen Wei Dance’s Two. Photo by Daria Mikhaylyukk.
Dancing on the Edge Festival presents Wen Wei Dance’s Two at the Firehall Arts Centre. Reviewed on July 9. Remaining performance on July 11 at 7 pm PDT.
ASK PEOPLE WHAT they missed the most during the last 16 months of pandemic life, and many will say hugs. This universal yearning for physical and emotional connection is at the very heart of Two, choreographer Wen Wei Wang’s duet that is having its world premiere at Dancing on the Edge.
Created and directed by Wang, founder of Wen Wei Dance, and performed by Justin Calvadores and Calder White, the work vividly and brilliantly encapsulates the loneliness that COVID-19 brought on and the deep longing to be with people that grew out of it.
Two unfolds in two parts: a film and a live performance. Directed by Daria Mikhaylyuk, the film sees the dancers outdoors—first in nature, in a sun-dappled forest and at beautiful Jericho Beach, then in the city, in Gastown and Chinatown, in alleyways and on pedestrian bridges. Their gestures are softer and gentler in the natural world (consider their caressing of rain-soaked logs at the beach) compared to in the urban context, where they appear more rigid. Still, the through line is the concept of reaching—literally and figuratively.
Composer Stefan Nazarevich’s soundscape is the perfect audio capture of our times. Static evokes tension and anxiety, but it’s layered with what alternately sounds like a heartbeat or drops of rain to convey a calming, meditative quality.
The score picks up anew in the live performance. It opens with Calvadores (a second generation Filipinx-Canadian freelance dancer and Arts Umbrella Dance graduate who apprenticed with Ballet BC before joining Ballet Edmonton) and White (a freelance artist with a BFA in dance, former dancer with Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre and current member of Shay Kuebler/Radical System Art and Peggy Baker Dance Projects) placed diagonally across from each other on-stage, each in a square of light, bringing to mind the boxes we were all stuck in for so long. Lighting director James Proudfoot works his magic, the lighting driving home the theme of isolation. At another point, a narrow band of bright white light runs down the middle of the entire stage, separating the two artists who, eventually, after so much hesitation, come neck to neck on either side of it.
This meeting point is one of Two’s most powerful scenes: the dancers never actually touch but they come so close; their fluid, undulating, and sensual gestures stir up tenderness and desire. You just wish they could embrace.
Two speaks to Wang’s sophistication as a choreographer. There’s nothing extraneous in the piece, the live performance lasting around 25 minutes. He knows how to say what he wants and needs to say through the human body without feeling the need to fill time. This kind of smart pacing and structure—along with the subtlest of movements that express so much—only comes with experience.
In introducing the piece, Dancing on the Edge Festival producer Donna Spencer greeted audiences with a heartfelt thanks; seeing people in seats at the Firehall after so long, she said, made her heart sing. You could feel the giddiness in the audience at being back in a theatre for a live show; afterward, some people who hadn’t seen each other in a long while asked each other if it was okay to hug. We’re still getting used to how to act in this new normal. Two is a stark reminder of just how necessary and glorious it is to connect with our fellow humans.
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