Interview: Yang Sun & Mofei Wei
Luca Curci talks with Yang Sun & Mofei Wei during CONSCIOUSNESS, second appointment of ANIMA MUNDI 2024, at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello.

Yang is a dancer, choreographer, and visual artist. Her strong bond with movements started with improvisation practices in the field, cafeteria, corridor, riverbank and other non-traditional spaces. Following her improvisation journey, she trained in Contemporary, Ballet, and Hip Hop. She holds a Summa cum laude Bachelor of Arts in Theater and Dance from Amherst College. As a dancer, she has performed in works by Shen Wei, Jonathan Frederick, Jordan Lloyd, Elena Puchol Sola, Michael Getman, etc. She is currently performing with Yoshiko Chuma and The School of Hardknocks. As a creator, her movement works have been presented at numerous venues in the U.S. and Canada including Arts on Site, La MaMa ETC, FASS Forward Dance Film Festival, Experimental Dance & Music Video Festival, Kirby Theater, American College Dance Association Northeast Regional Gala, and American Dance Festival Informal Concert.

Mofei is a film director, editor, and visual artist. Navigating between different media types as a self-taught kid, she’ll work on something, get it to a certain point, and then leave it. Walking is her meditation, a way to maintain her sensitivity and curiosity. She spends a lot of time walking, observing, chatting with people she randomly encounters and trying to expand the power of the “nearby”. “Poet” is a dance film inspired by Chinese poet Yu Xiuhua, a rural woman with cerebral palsy, who recently became famous in China. Many started to know her works from her audacious Poem “Crossing Half of China to Sleep with You”. Living in a conservative rural village in southern China where prejudice against women, disability, and divorce are high, she managed to break free from an unwanted marriage and live her life as a writer despite the satirical voices around her.

Luca Curci – How did you get to your current artistic practice?
Yang sun – My years of site-specific movement improvisation have provided me with insights into the poetics of the space. I realized that when I pay attention to the space itself first, it grounds me to find motifs and sparks for movements within one specific universe, thus leading the work to a sense of wholeness even when the narratives are non-directional. In the case of Poet, this space is first the narrow train cabin and then transporting to the wide and endless wheat field which each generates a certain mood, movement quality, and relationship with the space.
Mofei Wei – In the past few years, I have been working in the fields of documentary and music visuals. However, due to my strong interest in dance and body movements, I have been practising dance myself and collaborating with talented dancers around me. Dance films are like a form of non-verbal communication, capable of silently conveying emotions without the need for words.

LC – Which artists have somehow influenced your work?
YS – Pina Bausch has been my biggest inspiration. Her dance theatre piece Café Müller has had a profound impact on me. There is a sense of emotional wholeness in her works, and I realize that the movement itself matters less than the intention we embedded in them. Her work exposes the secrets under the flesh, people’s inner delicacy, hideousness, fragility, humour, absurdity or desire…
MW – I was heavily inspired by Roman Signer and Agnès Varda. Their arts are easy to perceive and share the same boldness, directness and humour. It can give you emotion and also reflection just by the thought of it. I believe being easy to perceive means narrating a story through human universal senses and using the most everyday objects with humour being my favourite because it silently conveys information and energy, affecting people and their surroundings.

LC – How much has the city/country in which you grew up/born affected your work as an artist?
YS – I grew up in China and went to the U.S. during high school. My teenage years were filled with questions about my place in the U.S. The constant moving has made me observe my surroundings quite a lot- I would stare at the crowd in and out of subways, the pigeons gliding over the lake, the stranger who sits on the same bench in the same position for days, etc… Many of these observations, especially the one that includes sequences of movement, often become materials in my work.

LC – Do visitors’ suggestions enrich yourself and your art?
YS – Sadly, our Poet team were not able to attend the CONSCIOUSNESS ANIMA Mundi exhibition in person so we didn’t have the chance to interact with the visitors yet.

LC – What is the most challenging part about creating your artwork?
YS – This film version of Poet stems from a 12-minute solo I did in March 2023. The stage version was quite special in its own sense. Thus, the translation process into this film was quite difficult as it came with many revisions in an effort to capture the essence of the original piece.
MW – Because the concept of the film is largely related to the connection between humans and nature, both Yang Sun and I were exploring our filming location in Xinjiang, China for the first time. We spent a long time feeling the wheat and perceiving the subtle energy exchanges between us and nature.

LC – How is your creative process?
YS – I collaborated with Mofei once for an improv dance film about two years before we collaborated again on this film Poet. When I had the idea of adapting my dance solo to a dance film, I immediately thought of Mofei as I admired her works. Mofei later invited our two other talented collaborators Haha Qu and Zuho to join the team. Most of our process was spent on planning the trips and finding the most ideal sites, especially for the wheatfield.
MW – Once the ideas became clear in our minds, we needed to be flexible in finding suitable filming locations. The locals provided us with a lot of guidance and help, even taking us to their own wheat fields for shooting. However, humans can never control nature, and the weather in Xinjiang is highly unpredictable with weather forecasts being almost useless. We had to rely on chance for our filming. Fortunately, nature blessed us with many beautiful skies and light drizzles.

LC – Your last artistic production attracted us, has the artwork presented been created for the exhibition or as a part of preexisting works?
YS – The Poet was not made for any exhibition at first. Poet is inspired by a Chinese poet Yu Xiuhua. Her poem came into my life when I was trapped in the question of “why do I dance?”. Her poems share a raw intimacy with all the simple strength in nature, the grain, river, and mountain… Her words are like grains of wheat, rooted deeply into the earth, dancing upwards, full of unwavering determination to live vigorously and on her own terms. Despite her disability, pain, and struggles, she holds a nearly insane dedication and pursuit of exuberant vitality. This unbattered persistence touched my soul, and that was the moment I realized that I dance out of my most sincere love and reverence for life, all lives. This film is thus dedicated to the vigour, courage, struggle, fight, freedom, and love for nature Yu Xiuhua has inspired in all of us.

LC – Do you agree with our vision of art and what do you think about the theme of the exhibition?
YS – I really think our film Poet and your theme of soul, body, and all beings of the planet fit well together. The essence of our film is a soul-searching journey for freedom, vigour, and connection to nature.

LC – Did you enjoy cooperating with us?
YS – Yes! It has been a very smooth process communicating with the team of ITSLIQUID Group regarding all the details leading up to and after the exhibition. What a pleasure.

LC – What do you think about ITSLIQUID Platform?
YS – I am so grateful for the Open Call format ITSLIQUID is able to offer for international artists. We as young artists often lack a platform to share our craft and thoughts, and ITSLIQUID has provided us with the visibility and the platform to share.