Wan-Chen McGuinness, a Taiwanese London-based contemporary dancer, aged 31, suffered fatal injuries in a tragic cycling accident in Holborn last week (24 Sep 08). Her colleagues and friends Chantal Guevara (Cloud Dance), Katie Thies (ktdt), Sylvia Ferreira (Sylvia Ferreira Dance Company) pay tribute here…
It was March last year and we were chatting in rehearsal about Wan-Chen’s upcoming 30th birthday and how she planned to spend it. Embarrassed, she said she’d only been in London for two months and didn’t have any friends yet. We contradicted her, saying there were twelve of us, so she had twelve friends now.
Wan-Chen arrived in London in January 2007 with her husband, a doctor, William McGuinness. In the short time she was here, she came to know a wide number of people through dancing for Cloud Dance, Sylvia Ferreira Dance Company, Katie Thies Dance Theatre and KorsnesKompani, and through classes at Laban and Greenwich Dance Agency. Everyone she met was struck by her amazing gift for dancing, her warm, funny personality – but most of all by what an exceptionally beautiful dancer she was.
Through Cloud Dance, she performed at Sadler’s Wells’ Open Connect Festival in March 2007, and later at the first Cloud Dance Festival at Chisenhale Dance Space in June 2007.
Following the latter, she joined Sylvia Ferreira Dance Company, where she became integral and certainly irreplaceable to the work and company. She toured with the company in Marks That Behold in 2007-8 and as part of Meet Me In The… Evening in March 2008.
In September 2007 Wan-Chen joined ktdt, Katie Thies Dance Theatre, as one of a company of seven dancers. She worked collaboratively in this tight-knit group, becoming part of a family, creating beautiful material to share. She performed with ktdt in Black Swan Moments in Resolution! at The Place in February 2008. She continued work with ktdt and had recently workshopped new material with the company in June 2008.
Wan-Chen also performed in KorsnesKompani’s I Once Entered A Cave as part of Resolution! in 2008.
Prior to moving to the UK, Wan-Chen was a member of Lyn-Yong Dance Company for 5 years. During her time in the company, she performed nationally and toured to Italy, Spain and Germany.
Wan-Chen trained and graduated from Chinese Culture University in Taipei Taiwan, receiving her BA in Dance. She continued her dance education in the California Institute of the Arts, where she received an MA in Dance and an assistantship to work as a technical assistant in The Sharon Disney Lund Dance Theatre.
In 2003 she moved to New York and joined Jessica Gaynor Dance Company where she performed at Triskelion Arts, Dance Space, Jennifer Muller/The Works HATCH series and The Kitchen. She also worked with choreographer Sean Curran and participated in the opera ‘Nixon in China’ at St. Louis Opera Theatre in Missouri.
Wan-Chen often talked at first about finding work to pay for dance classes and other dance-related expenses, and soon started working at the Museum of Natural History in South Kensington. Apart from dance she loved knitting, Apple Macs, and cycling. She is survived by her husband, William McGuinness.
All of us who knew her here in London expected great things to come from her wonderful talent, and we are deeply saddened and shocked by her unexpected loss in last week’s road accident.
A life taken too early
A dance, one step too short
A graceful soul and a heart of gold
She touched us all.
Gone, but not forgotten
You will be missed
You will be loved
You will be held in our hearts forever.
Original text and webpage available here
