Chengxin Wei – Choreographer, Instructor

Chengxin Wei was born in Dalian, China. At the age of eleven, he was accepted into the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy, where he studied Classical Chinese Dance. After eleven years of rigorous professional training, he graduated with distinction in 1997, earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree. He then joined the Guangdong Provincial Opera and Dance Theatre, where he performed as a principal dancer for three years.

After immigrating to Vancouver in 2000, Chengxin performed with a wide range of Canadian dance companies, including Anatomica, Company Erasga, EDAM, Judith Marcuse Projects, Joe Ink, the Lorita Leung Dance Company, MovEnt, and Wen Wei Dance. Hailed as a “powerhouse performer,” he also danced with Ballet British Columbia for eight seasons, performing works by renowned choreographers such as John Alleyne, Agnes de Mille, Dominique Dumais, Nicolo Fonte, Mark Godden, James Kudelka, Jiří Kylián, Crystal Pite, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, and Peter Wyss.

In 2004, Chengxin co-founded Moving Dragon, a contemporary dance company dedicated to cross-cultural exploration between Eastern and Western dance traditions. The company has performed across Canada at venues including the National Arts Centre (Ottawa), the CanAsian Dance Festival (Toronto), the InFrinGinG Dance Festival (Nanaimo), and CorresponDANSE (Quebec City). Its repertoire of original works includes Yuan, Interplay, Lumina I & II, Triaspora, LuminUS, and Koong.

Chengxin is the recipient of the Iris Garland Emerging Choreographer Award and has also been awarded the David Leighton Arts Fellowship by the National Arts Centre in Ottawa in recognition of his outstanding achievements in dance.

From 2010 to 2012, Chengxin received a full scholarship to earn his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Dance from the University of Washington, specializing in higher education teaching. During this time, he taught undergraduate courses in Ballet, Modern, and Chinese Dance, and developed an original course titled When West Meets East: Asian Influences on Western Dance. In recognition of his outstanding accomplishments, he was awarded an Arts Challenge Grant from the University of Washington.

From 2012 to 2014, he served as an Associate Professor in the Dance Department at Ohio University. In the following years, he also taught as a sessional instructor in the Dance Department at Simon Fraser University, focusing on contemporary dance. He is currently Director of the Contemporary Dance Program at the Lorita Leung Dance Academy, where he continues to mentor the next generation of dancers.

Alongside his teaching, Chengxin continues to collaborate actively with local Canadian artists. His work Crossing Mountains and Seas premiered in Vancouver in July 2019. Between 2020 and 2022, he was invited by the renowned Vancouver-based company Dance for a Small Stage to choreograph and present performances on Robson Street and for the Love Bubbles project, both of which received strong audience acclaim. In 2021, he was invited by the Little Pear Garden Dance Company in Toronto to choreograph and perform in the dance production Loss · Resilience · Hope.