Today we’d like to introduce you to Jingqiu Guan.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jingqiu. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
I was born and raised in Chengdu, China. Growing up, I have studied many different forms of art, from Chinese calligraphy to drawing, to piano, and to dance. Dance has always been my favorite activity and the art form that I have never stopped pursuing.
Despite my passion for it, I had never considered doing anything related to dance for my career. I was always encouraged to focus on my academic education and to pursue a career in banking or business. I did not realize how much I loved to dance and film until coming to the US for higher education. I learned about dance film when I was pursuing my MFA in Dance Performance at the University of Iowa.
Since discovering this form of expression, I have been consistently creating short dance film works. It has been a long process of trials and errors. I just kept on making works. I felt strongly that this is the art form that allows me to best express my imagination and to tell stories that I would like to share with the world. It has definitely been a long process of constant learning.
I am still learning more every time I create new works. I believe that it will be a never-ending process of experimenting with new techniques, refining skills, and searching for my personal voices through the process of creating. As of now, my dance films have been presented in a number of dance film festivals in the United States, China, Hong Kong, the UK, and Norway.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been an extremely curvilinear road. The major struggle had been how to convince my Chinese parents that a career in dance and film is as legitimate as a career in economics or business. I first came to the US for undergraduate education. I majored in Economics and French. We did not have a dance major at our college (Saint Mary’s College, IN) but I continued to take classes and performed at our college’s dance ensemble.
During those four years as an undergraduate student, I came to a realization that I would really love to pursue a career in dance. But I was not clear what exactly that meant to me. In my senior year, I applied for graduate schools in several different fields including one MFA program in dance performance. When I learned that I got into both the Master of Education at Harvard University and the MFA program in Dance Performance at the University of Iowa, I was much more excited about the opportunity to pursue a dance degree.
However, my parents insisted that I had no choice but to attend Harvard, which did turn out to be an incredible learning experience. During my time there, I secretly applied to the same MFA program again and was very lucky to get accepted again. My parents finally let me make my own choice to attend the dance program after finishing my degree at Harvard. My time at the University of Iowa was filled with unforgettable experiences of dancing and dance-making. It was at that place I learned what it meant to be an artist. It was also there that I first encountered the art form of dance film, which quickly became my principle art practice.
As of this evening, my parents actually jumped on board to help me with the next dance film project that I will create in my hometown in China. My dad will be one of the dancers in the film, and my mom has started to help me scout locations. Their support means everything to me. When I look back on my journey getting to where I am today, I wonder where I would have been if my parents had always been encouraging for my artistic pursuit. One thing I am certain about is that their initial disapproval forced me to articulate why it is important to do what I do and pushed me to work harder to navigate a way that both honors them but also true to my own passion and vision.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I am an independent dance film artist. In other words, I make short films that narrate through movement of the body rather than spoken words. I make works either by collaborating with other dance or film artists and completely independently. I also do videography and photography for live dance performances from time to time. In my own dance film works, I am interested in stories of the everyday.
During my Ph.D. program in Culture and Performance at UCLA, I have had the opportunity to learn more about filmmaking, particularly documentary filmmaking. My recent dance film works are influenced by documentary aesthetics. I treat everyday gestures as raw materials that could be choreographed into a dance through the editing process.
For instance, my two recent works feature, respectively, my own child’s impulsive movement when he was one-month old, and elder people exercising in a park in China. I find myself becoming much more fascinated by an unconscious everyday movement that are marked by our personal social and cultural histories than intentionally choreographed dance.
But then the process of editing becomes where choreography really takes place. As a dancer and choreographer, I am very sensitive to movement when I create films. I am particularly interested in film subjects that are traditionally under-represented in dance. As a mother with a toddler, I am also becoming more and more interested in issues surrounding social constructions of motherhood and forms of labor mothers perform.
Currently, I am in the process of writing my dissertation that explores the aesthetics and politics of dance and moving image in China. Maintaining the artistic practice breathes fresh air into theoretical research. For me, they go hand-in-hand. Theories inform my practice and allow me to be conscious about politics of representation. My art practice also shapes my lens when examining other artists’ dance film works.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My favorite memory from childhood was seeing a flower turning into a butterfly. I think I was under five years old. I remember seeing a beautiful flower at the entrance of a park. I was so drawn to it that I walked over, attempting to pick it up.
The moment my hand touched the flower, it turned into a butterfly and flew away. I remember how fascinated I was by the way the butterfly was flying in the air, flipping its little white wings under the ray of sunshine. I know another version of the story could be that I completely mistaken a butterfly to a flower.
But I would rather believe that magic could happen, and a flower could turn into a butterfly. That is what cinema does, creating magic through light and movement.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jingqiuguan.com
- Phone: 574-520-9650
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jingqiu.guan/
Image Credit:
David Tuman
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