A Shift in the Art World: Kadin Vanden Heuvel. By Victoria Mulja

Kadin Vanden Heuvel decided to move out to Vancouver to pursue her dance studies at Simon Fraser University’s contemporary dance program in September 2015. Although trained in many different dance styles and techniques, her work is mainly focused on contemporary dance, incorporating her own movement quality characteristics that are drawn as inspiration from other dance genres. Some themes that she has explored through her work include the importance of art in today’s society, her own personal/ancestral story, and most of all, the different dimensions and possibilities the art of dance has when combined with various artistic practices. In this interview with Victoria Mulja, she discusses her back story and misconceptions individuals have about the art world.

Credits: Magenta Studio

Q: What role does the artist/dancer/choreographer/composer/filmmaker have in society?

A: Simply, I believe that the role any type of artist has in society is to inspire and be inspired. Yes, they create the projects they envision and produce differ works because it’s their life career, but it is also part of a lifestyle choice they have made from the start. It comes from what inspires them and who does the artist want to inspire. This is where society becomes integrated with one’s artistic practice. Their environment may inspire them to create something that they hope might bring awareness to a certain issue hoping to in return inspire the viewers who see and experience their work to become aware themselves. Overall an artist’s role is to keep everyone human by creating work that makes one reflect and ask questions and maybe search for something as simple as what gets them excited about life. I feel as though that the arts are not prioritized, represented, or seen equally to other types of jobs and work forces in our society. With ordinary people, everyone, not just artists, need some type of inspiration. If there was no art in our world, then people would maybe start to lose something like their child-like sense of curiosity. and that’s the one thing that’s stopping us from becoming robots and having them take over the world. There are people who create with different mediums and forms and types of art and present them to the public. It could keep them more human with their trait and personality, and how they interact with others. It has an important role in the way we live and our culture and upbringing. It keeps us real and authentic people.

Q: What is your scariest experience?

A: The scariest experience was moving out far away from home and having to properly learn how to take care of myself since I am no longer stuck to my parents anymore. Now, it is still scary because I’m still a growing and maturing young adult trying to juggle what life has to throw at me and ultimately figure out how I am going to shape my career path. Over the years I have learned to become more independent through living on my own and going through this university program and working as well, but of course everything is still a work in progress. There’s so much trial and error that I have experience and continue to experience, but I just continue to work on trying to find that healthy balance of the different aspects of my life.

Q: Describe a real-life situation that inspired you.

A: What inspires me is my background and my upbringing. A quick breakdown: I was born in China and then at 2 years old, I was adopted and brought to Canada. Of course, when I was younger, I didn’t think about much. Since I am out here and trying to figure out who I am as a person and an artist, I feel as though that my background and my history keeps coming up for me and inspires me to explore it and try to discover and learn as much as I can from my mysterious past. It also inspires me in terms of the approach that I take towards creating my work which is just having a playful curious mind along with a sense of exploration and experimentation. My past and identity inspires me because it is a mystery that comes with many mixed emotions. Feelings of gratitude, happiness, fear, anxiety, pain, and sadness sum up the first couple years of my life.

Q: At what age did you find out that you and your parents are not biologically related?

A: I found out when I was 5 or 6; they never hide anything from me and are very open.

Q: Did that hit you?

A: It did, but I feel like it’s kind of weird because it hasn’t really hit me until the past few years… Since 1st year when I thought “Whoa…we’re not biologically related. I’m not originally from here” This is why my work in dance and choreography and the ideas that come with it have revolved around the self-discovery that I’ve been doing recently.

Q: What do you dislike about the art world?

A: What I dislike about the art world is how there is a lot of misconceptions around it, especially with concerning of jobs in the arts field. A lot of people say how no matter what type of artist you are, you will make no money and therefore get nowhere in your life. I feel like sometimes people maybe judge artists too quickly. Maybe they based it off of history and how they think that a lot of the artists are complete wackos, or it simply could be jealousy of how artists courageously chose to dedicate their life to something that they love to do. The art world can’t really do much because usually arts is always put at the lowest realm or the bottom of the food chain. Thinking about the arts world reminds me of something important that choreographer Noam Gagnon said once in rehearsal, “It’s a fortunate and unfortunate world that we have chosen.”

Q: What makes you angry?

A; People who make rude comments about artists and their lifestyle/career choice or just degrade the arts world in anyway. The audacity some people have to put down an artist’s hard work and sacrifices into their career is just extremely saddening and disappointing. People who don’t support the arts and don’t see the importance that it has in the coming generations make me just as angry as well.

Q: Name three artists you’d like to be compared to

A: Crystal Pite, who is well known around the world as a dancer, artist, and choreographer. Another one would be Pablo Picasso and Michael Jackson.

Q: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

A: From my mom, it’s to do what you love. Life is too short to not be doing what you love. That is the number one priority in my life and I truly try to live by that. Another piece of advice that I was given is to never give up and lose hope, always remember that when one door closes, another will open.