We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Annika Wong a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Annika, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I have been really fortunate in that I have been involved in a number of projects that have been important to me over the years. One of the most meaningful projects I have been involved in was my personal dance narrative that was devised and created over the course of a year. It was a project that I had been envisioning for a long time, and since its inception we have had the opportunity to perform it at two different venues, with hopefully more to come! This project was especially meaningful because I was able to collaborate with some of my closest friends on it – not only choreographically, but also on overall design and costuming. The show, in its essence, is about love, and to create a show about love and transience with my closest friends was truly special, and I hope to continue to work on projects like this.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a dancer, performer and artist originally from Vancouver, Canada, currently living and working in New York City. I had grown up dancing all my life, and at around age 16 I knew that if I wanted to keep dancing, and eventually dancing professionally, I would have to make the move and continue my training elsewhere… which lead me to New York! I found the Professional Semester program at Broadway Dance Center and got the NYC bug very quickly. I moved here with the intention of being strictly a musical theatre dancer, but living here over the years has opened me up to so many different genres and ways of moving. I still am a theatre girl at heart, but now I’ve come to a place where my movement is so influenced by street styles, hip hop, contemporary, commercial styles… that it all kind of blends into one. Although I am still continuing my career as a performer, it’s only been in the last few years that I have also expanded my interest to choreography and directing, which I have also come to really love, and can see myself continuing to do well into my future. My experience in immersive theatrical work has lead me to want to create similar kinds of environments – more than just putting on a show, I am interested in creating an all encompassing experience for an audience. This was what I aimed to do with the most recent installation of my dance narrative, Meet Me at Mine, that we performed at a venue in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I like creating work that is personal to me, but that also echoes what we go through as humans who move through the phases of experiencing love and loss, and all the transient stages in between. It’s about striking that balance between creating a work that an audience can relate to, and showing them something they’ve never seen before. It’s about helping them see their own experience differently, it’s about making them think, or question. The dance community in New York is so rich and beautiful, and being able to create work that is collaborative with these people is truly a dream come true.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think in general, it can be difficult to understand a life and career as a creative – majority of us artists do not work 9-5’s. The potential lack of stability can be hard to grasp. A lot of my non-artist friends also tell me that they could never “put themselves out there” like us dancers do, facing all the auditions we go to, putting ourselves out there only to be potentially rejected. But, to sum it up, the wise Rachelle Rak once said: “Were those hundreds of no’s worth that one yes? Yes.” I believe that to be true – to be an artist in the industry you have to have tough skin. You have to be resilient, because the journey is filled with hills and valleys, extreme highs and lows. It can be hard, but at the end of the day I know my life as an artist is the life I love, in the good times and bad.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I have many goals as an artist and for what I envision in my future, but essentially I want to continue performing for companies and people I respect, as well as creating good art with my respected collaborators and friends. I have friends who are filmmakers, pastry chefs, graphic designers, dancers, painters etc – and one of my life’s goals is to create an experience, a show, that combines all of these talents. An immersive dance show or musical with a curated menu, or a space in Brooklyn where dance companies can have residencies and performances, that is also a restaurant/wine bar at night so audience members can come to a relaxed environment and watch dance. I am also currently writing a musical that I would like to produce and direct one day, with the help of my beautiful community around me! I want to be able to create more opportunities for more dancers and artists, of all genders and races. I want to create good art for the betterment of the community, and hopefully the betterment of the world.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @annikatofu @mine_nyc

Image Credits
Dash Kolos Natalia Sanchez