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dance by Ben D'Andrea H o m e Is W h e r e the D a n c e Is Wyman made her home in London for 13 years, studying and teaching dance, before coming to Canada in 1968 and launching her own dance school and company. As the artistic director and principal choreographer of the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre. Wyman soon developed a reputation for taking a fresh approach to dance. For example, her dances sometimes included unusual props, like the antique three-wheeled bicycles of Dance Is. "It's like yesterday." Wyman says, remembering the debut of the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1971. "It was a very exciting time." Wyman's dancers brought a wide range of dance experience and technique to the company, and this versatility, she explains, allowed her to explore new creative paths, including improvisation. She would take her dancers to look at paintings and sculpture at the art gallery and later have them improvise what they saw into dance movement. The Anna Wyman Dance Theatre toured Canada, the United States. Europe. India, and Australia, and it was the first modern dance company to perform in China. Wyman recalls the company's six-week tour through Theatre F r o m a cool, shady comer of her North Shore backyard. Anna Wynian argues her case for supporting ihe arts. "We can't just concentrate on our back gardens." she says in her decisive alto voice. "Especially in today's society, we need Ihe arts desperately." Il seems appropriate that the (lowers Wyman has planted as far down into her garden as the eye can see are showing off their colours in glorious full bloom. It may be relatively easy to grow a beautiful garden, but Wyman also has an uncommon gift for cultivating the art of dance. "Dance has been my life." she says, matter-of-factly. The depth of her commitment, though, is in her dark eyes. "You go into [dance] because you love it." a ' A t Anna Wyman, Artistic Director, Anna Wyman Dance Born in Graz. Austria. Wyman started dancing when she was four years old. She trained at the Graz Opera Ballet School and began her career as a principal dancer with the Graz Ballet. Later, she toured Europe with the Schonemann Ballet Company. "It's a very gruelling profession." Wyman says. "Your body and your joints are overworked." She believes that a strong, unwavering dedication is the dancer's only defence against the painful physical demands of dancing. ^ yl < 6 the B.C. interior and the trouble they had keeping the wheels attached to their old school bus. "The tires would go whoomf!--flying off on the highway, you know, because we'd been travelling so long " But the audiences were receptive, even when there were skeptics sitting in the front row with their cowboy hats on. "It was a time when the audience kind of grew with us." Wyman says. After blazing a trail through the dance world for 19 years, the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre was unfortunately forced to shut down in 1990, the result of drastic funding cuts. It was a difficult time for Wyman. but she is now philosophical about it. "There isn't enough money to go around." she says. Wyman even sees a positive side to the funding crunch: Dancers and choreographers have to believe more strongly in what they do and strive harder than ever before. "The arts are still here and progressing," she says. "It has to be." And the proof may be in the fact that the 25-year-old Anna Wyman School of Dance Arts in West Vancouver is thriving. Altogether, the school has 400 students, including both junior and senior performing groups. Wyman describes her school as a family-oriented dance studio where students take dance classes for a wide range of reasons. Some of her students want to become dancers, to be challenged by the strict physical discipline dance requires, while Maskerade. 1988. Choreographer: Anna Wyman. Dancers: Robert Russell. Mary Dianne Chantal Sullivan-Tamasik Garrett, Dauphinais, Danielle Stuck, Francis Nash, Allan Barry. Photo: David Cooper.