Today we’d like to introduce you to Tokie (Jiayin) Wang.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Hi, I am Jiayin Wang (Tokie). I was born and raised in Hangzhou, China, the country’s fourth largest city, renowned as a hub for performing arts and culture, especially in the fields of dance and music. I am currently based in Los Angeles and am actively working as a choreographer, dancer and visual artist. This past December, I received a master’s degree in fine arts from the California Institute of the Arts, alongside a minor in integrated media.
Dance, fashion, and art are rooted in my blood. My parents both pursued careers in dance – my dad was an award-winning B-Boy, and my mom a classical Chinese dancer. They met during their tenure at the same dance company, and after retiring from that company, they started a fashion business, opening a clothing store near home. This is about where I came into the picture, enveloped in the creative environment my parents had cultivated. When customers walked in the shop, they would see a toddler climbing on the counter and grooving to 2000s disco songs with a huge smile on her face. At a very early age, I was exposed to a wide range of clothing styles and trends, and being in an atmosphere where I could freely experiment with and try on those styles embedded a deep sense of interest and passion for physical creative expression in my soul.
I was always motivated to read my mom’s fashion magazines, and, like almost every naughty kid, I would often cut up pages from these magazines without my mom’s permission and then would glue them together on different surfaces. It was only decades later that I found out that this form of expression is called “collage”. Dance, to me, became a way of gluing the elements of my surroundings onto me. At the times when I have been dancing at my best, I feel as though I had become a collage, with my life’s experiences and emotions wrapped around me for all to see. I am passionate about collecting the “beauty” I have noticed in my daily life and expressing it, whether through dance, visual art, or technology.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
My parents noticed my passion for dance at a young age and put me in dance training programs and classes at the age of four. I spent several years within the Chinese dance training system, with it becoming the foundation of my dance career. The Chinese dance system emphasizes a standardized technique: movements must be done a certain way to be considered beautiful. The teaching philosophy that I have encountered in contemporary dance courses is similarly strict to the traditional Chinese dance training, and I often felt stuck when the limitations of my body did not allow me to reach the “standards” that the system arbitrarily set. While the training I received through this system really gave me a decent foundation, it limited my creativity. I wished I was able to find the “disco toddler” back in my body and move uninhibited with no restrictions or “standards”.
Fortunately, my wishes were answered. I started training with Western guest artists who taught contemporary dance classes during my college studies. I exposed myself to different dance methodologies, including contact improvisation and other forms of dance that departed from the strictness of the Chinese dance system. They helped me to approach my dance with more independence to respect and appreciate my body’s abilities and limitations, and let go of a predetermined standard of beauty that had been drilled into my young mind. This journey of experiences became the source of my desire to immerse myself within Western dance. So I left home and traveled to the UK and then to the US, with my dance as my bedrock and with the goal of finding my true self as an artist.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work encompasses two spheres, with my left foot firmly planted in the commercial arena as a choreographer and a dancer. I worked with companies & brands in the US and China, such as LOOKwhat Studio, Flower Knows Cosmetics, Hong Kong NetEase Interactive Entertainment Limited, FAENZA, Xigua Video and VJU, choreographing commercials, music videos, and other forms of commercial art. My right foot could be found in the theater and gallery, delivering my point of view to my audience through performance.
During my time at CalArts, I was specifically interested in collaging different kinds of mediums together, not only in a two-dimensional space, but also out in the physical world. My choreography has led me down pathways of exploration, imagination, research, redefinition, and playfulness, much like a children’s game. Gradually discovering and forming expressions of dance within the process of studying it and creating it, I have started to understand my body, my thoughts, and how I want to present myself to the world around me. My work is a mirror-looking collage made of my stories and the world surrounding me, taking the things that I find beautiful and motivating, and collaging it and transforming it into new forms of expression which I then share. I hope people who see my work can see a reflection in it of themselves. Even if they do not find themselves in the mirror, that is my work, it is totally fine. It’s already a pleasure for me that my audience is spending their time looking at it.
I am still trying to balance my feet in both fields. Last year, I made and directed “Because, You’re Worth It”, an immersive theater experience incorporating dance, toy theater and digital installations. The theater was transformed into an imaginary shopping mall, the Fairyland. I created an Instagram page to promote this project under the name of the “shopping mall”. In this page, I practiced using my commercial mindset, attempting to dazzle and lure in the audience into the world I created through visual language. During the show, the audience interacted with different members of my cast, who were in “sales” or were “regular customers” (among others), to explore the story happening in each department of the production. It attempts to adapt the story of Cinderella, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and Narcissus from a contemporary female perspective. I dedicated this work to my childhood self and people who struggle with arbitrary beauty standards and the inescapable consumerism associated with it. In this immersive theater, the audience can choose where to look, with their gaze indicating their own attitude towards consumerism. As the audience walked through the piece, I hoped they were able to be aware of consumerism and have a critical mindset towards it – deciding for themselves what it means to them. It’s an interesting thought because, as modern people, we both criticize consumerism yet still want to be a part of it.
Moving forward, I am going to present Because, You’re Worth It in IndyFringe (a theater festival located in Indiana) at the end of summer. I am also planning to build Fairyland in a virtual space in an interactive VR project
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Besides dance and choreography, I also make works as a digital collage artist. I love collecting elements from old magazines and making films out of my collection. Watching still elements moving on the screen and redefining themselves always entertains me. It made me ask myself – what truly is dance? Are people the only ones capable of dancing? Or can inanimate objects, often thought of as soulless, dance to their own tunes as well?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tokiewang.cargo.site
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tokieeeee/
Image Credits
Headshots: P1,2, photo by Lee Gumbs Because, You’re Worth It: P3,4, photo by Rafael Hernandez-Ispache A Night In The Club: P5, digital collage film by Tokie Wang Beauty Standard: P6, digital collage film by Tokie Wang Commercials: P7,8,9, produced by LookWhat Studio Somewhere, Elsewhere, Nowhere: P10, photo by Rafael Hernandez-Ispache
