Faces to Watch

Shen Wei

Dancer-choreographer

“Poetic, impudent, beautiful and strange.” These words by New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff responded to two pieces that local audiences are scheduled to see at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on March 19 and 20. And Kisselgoff was hardly alone in her praise. Clearly, a Chinese immigrant’s abstract vision of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” (in a four-hand piano reduction) and his “Folding,” to music by John Tavener (supplemented with Tibetan rituals), scored a triumph with the New York public.

Born in Hunan, China, and an original member of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company (China’s first modern dance troupe), Shen, 35, moved to New York City in 1995 and founded Shen Wei Dance Arts five years later. In between, he choreographed for the American Dance Festival, Alvin Ailey II and other companies -- but also pursued a painting career. “Because I’m a painter, I want to see how dance movement relates to music,” he told New York Newsday. “And also how music and dance relate to visual art, to see how the three elements combine.”

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Alina Cojocaru

Dancer

When Britain’s Royal Ballet dances its new production of Frederick Ashton’s “Cinderella” from July 6 to 11 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, local audiences are likely to become instant fans of a tiny Romanian-born ballerina whose own career has been a Cinderella story.

Famed for making debuts in major roles on short notice -- but dancing them with great technical assurance and stylistic purity -- Cojocaru, 22, was born in Bucharest, studied ballet in Kiev and, after winning the Prix de Lausanne at age 16, accepted a scholarship to the Royal Ballet School. She joined the company two years later. Her most frequent partner is Johan Kobborg. Their rapport in such works as “Giselle” and this new “Cinderella” has balletomanes buzzing.

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Nacho Duato

Choreographer

U.S. audiences have seen Duato’s demanding, sensual choreography in the repertory of such companies as American Ballet Theatre. But on Oct. 18 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, his own troupe -- Spain’s Compania Nacional de Danza -- will perform in the Southland for the first time.

Duato’s international success is appropriate, since his early career found him absorbing influences all over the map. He was born in Valencia, received dance training in London, Brussels and New York, and signed his first professional contract in Stockholm. But in 1981, the choreographer, 46, found a home at Nederlands Dans Theater, where he made his mark first as a performer and then as a resident choreographer.

“When people come to see us at the theater, they should see themselves reflected on the stage,” Duato told Dance Magazine.

-- Lewis Segal