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West Van choreographer left legacy of modern dance in Canada

West Vancouver choreographer, artistic director and dance teacher Anna Wyman, an influential figure in the development of modern dance in Canada, died Saturday at Lions Gate Hospital at the age of 92.

West Vancouver choreographer, artistic director and dance teacher Anna Wyman, an influential figure in the development of modern dance in Canada, died Saturday at Lions Gate Hospital at the age of 92.

For much of the 1970s and 1980s the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre was regarded as one of Canada’s foremost modern-dance companies.

In 1975 it became the first modern dance troupe to tour Canada and went on to become one of the most travelled companies in North America, taking its dance productions to India, Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico.

The company also appeared in films and headlined at the National Arts Centre.

“She was a foundational matriarch of a mini-dynasty of dance in Canada,” said her ex-husband Max Wyman, a dance critic, biographer and historian.

Anna Wyman in studio
Anna Wyman in her dance studio with dancer Vickye Wood (left), Neil Wortley and Trevor Wyman. photo submitted Max Wyman

Born in Austria, Wyman started dancing at age four and in her teens danced with the Graz Opera Ballet company and at the State Opera in Vienna.

In the late-1940s, Wyman moved to London to continue her study with dance artist and theorist Rudolf von Laban, whose Laban movement analysis, a method for describing and visualizing human movement, had an impact on the young dancer who would go on to employ the method when it came time to develop her own practice as a teacher and choreographer.

She emigrated to Canada in 1967 with her then-husband Wyman and children.

Her arrival coincided with a flowering of interest in the arts in Canada, and she launched The Anna Wyman Dancers in 1971 with a series of performances at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

In a 1985 article published by the New York Times looking at the company’s New York debut, the paper notes: “Any visitor to Canada interested in dance has often heard Miss Wyman’s name mentioned. There is no doubt that she has played a role in the burgeoning dance activity now evident in major Canadian cities.”

A lover of collaboration between dancers and artists of various trades, Wyman’s tenure running her dance company was marked by an emphasis on improvisation, which was novel when first introduced, as well as other remarkable flourishes – such as lights, props, film, and even lasers – which would have seemed more suitable for the theatre than the dance stage.

But this was modern dance and the rules were being broken.

Anna Wyman dancers
Wyman's modern dance blended many art forms. These costumes for a work called Adastra were painted by Jack Shadbolt. photo submitted Max Wyman

Wyman commissioned costume and set designs with some of the era’s most prominent composers and artists, among them Jack Shadbolt, Toni Onley, Sylvia Tait and John Mills-Cockell.

 “It was choreography dance theatre, it wasn’t just dance. It was dance theatre, which involved a lot of things and involved a lot of other artists working with me. We worked together as a team,” Wyman told the North Shore News in December.

With her 1972 piece, Here at the Eye of the Hurricane, Wyman was a winner at the International Young Choreographers Competition in Cologne, Germany.

Another one of her best-known pieces, Dance Is This and That, incorporated Wyman’s philosophy that all movement is a form of dance by showing how a football player crashing on the field, a tennis player in their flow, or even simply walking to get groceries, could be considered dance, if it were observed the right way.

“Dance is life. We are all dancing, but we formalize the dance. It’s living,” said Wyman.

After two decades, the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre completed its run in 1991, but not before the company had accomplished a number of amazing feats, including being the first modern dance company from the West to tour China in 1980.

Anna Wyman
Anna Wyman. photo submitted Max Wyman

Wyman continued to administer and teach at her dance school in West Vancouver, nestled between 14th and 15th streets on Marine Drive.

Wyman was there in December when the dance school celebrated 50 years.

Wyman died in hospital Saturday following a heart attack at her West Vancouver home.

Predeceased by her husband, Neil Christopher Wortley, she leaves a son, Trevor Wyman, and a daughter, Gabrielle Capewell.

-with files from Max Wyman and Ben Bengtson