28 - Wednesday, June 24, 1992 — North Shore News

Never say never

Choreographer Anna Wyman gives her dance
students world-class standards to aspire to

NNA WYMAN has
never doubted that-
& she has secured a
lace as one of Canada’s
eading choreographers.

Not when the reviews were
disparaging, nor when the critics
accused her of running out of in-
ventive ideas.

“Oh, | know what they say,”’
she once told a Vancouver news-
paper reporter, ‘They say, ‘That
old bag. She’s always so serious

_and she hasn’t done anything new
in years.’ “

People were entitled to their
Gpinions. As far as Wyman was
concerned, she was confident in
the work she was creating — and
that was all there was to it.

In the 13 years since she made
those remarks, Wyman has seen
enough changes in Canadian
dance to leave her breathless.

The biggest change for her came
last year, when, faced with a
recession and a sharp reduction in

jovernment subsidies, she was |
forced té pull the plug on her 2i-
year-old company — long regard-
ed as one of Canada’s most endur-
ing modern dance troupes — and
the touring lifestyle that she had
come to adore.

And yet the raven-haired’
choreogtapher, who seldom
smiles, seems as determined as
ever. She admits it’s been a dif-
ficult year, but.her piercing dark .
eyes and resolute expression make
you feel confident she'll get

Evelyn Jacob

SPOTLIGHT FEATURE

through it.

“People don’t realize how
hard it is. This is your life, your
profession —- your love,’’ she says
in her North Vancouver home,
resplendent in a fuchsia pull-over

- that slips off her tanned shoulders.

These days Wyman has turned
her attention back to her dance
school, which has managed to
survive an undisturbed 24 years.

Producing future dancers, she
says, is what she wants to be do-
ing. That has required her to shift
gears a little.

For one thing, she’s had to learn
to tone down her demands on her
students.

Wyman earned a reputation as
something of a slave-driver for
putting her dancers through
punishing regimens from early
morning into the wee hours.

As one former dancer noted,
“Anna Wyman does not believe
in coffee breaks.”’

“It's very hard to work with

professional dancers for 21 years
and all of a sudden work with a
school,”’ she says of her need to
ease off. ‘It’s been very difficult
for me. And I have to be careful,
because sometimes | go in and say
this and that, and then 1 think,
Jesus, these are only students —
what are you doing?’

She may no longer be working
with world-class dancers, but she
gives her students the same stand-
ards to aspire to.

“It's a big responsibility work-
ing with children. You have to
deal with the forming of their
bodies and their bones, and watch
that you don’t do the wrong thing,
and that they don’t go off the edge
with their eating habits.

“It's a different kind of excite-
ment with the students. But it has
to be the same deiermination.

“The kids are very fortunate to
have someone like me, ’’ she con-
tinues, “because I’m not just a
teacher. And | choose my peopie
very carefully.”

Wyman employs four teachers,
including Neil Wortley, the man
she has lived with for the past 17
years.

Wortley was 25 years old when
they first met. He danced with the
company for 13 years (During the
company’s debut in New York he
was run over by a bus, which left
him with some memory loss).

Wvman remembers their first
encounter: ‘‘He came into the

See Career page 33

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