To Leave a Trace
Final film from the Bodies Left Out research project.Scheduled in the relay dance film programme, Seoul International Dance Festival in Tank, 23 September 2026.
Zhenhao Wen
Performance studies, dance film, photography, and teaching.
Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
About
Zhenhao Wen is a performer, researcher, photographer, and educator.
He is a Ph.D. student in Performance Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His research examines how bodies produce knowledge through movement, improvisation, image-making, and teaching.
His creative work focuses on bodies that are ordinary, unfinished, or overlooked, and on how performance and images can keep their experience visible.
Dance Films
Seven dance films made between 2022 and the present. Completed films can be watched here.
Facing the Mirror
Coming soon
Makeup
Metamorphosis
Who Is Watching Who
Nightmare
2022
Performance
Stage work as a dancer, with video, credits, and press.
Poster artwork: ARTSinTANK, 2026. View the Seoul Metropolitan Government event record.
ARTSinTANK Dance Festival in Korea
Performed in the international MDD collaboration showcase on 3 July, listed in the official programme among thirteen artists from six countries and regions.
Named in the official festival programme and the public performance listing.ARTSinTANK and Playticket, 2026Open work page
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Dance Program, international tour, 2026.
Festival à Corps
Selected as a student artist for UH Mānoa’s international tour across London, Paris and Poitiers. Performed in Tides of the Moon and KOMMOS.
UH News named Zhenhao Wen among the student artists on the tour.University of Hawaiʻi System News, 2026Open work page
Elegies rehearsals. Photo © Jayden Xie.
Elegies
A dance adaptation of Hamish Henderson's Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica, premiered at the Scottish Storytelling Centre and revised for the Pomegranates Festival.
“Their dance interpretation is beautifully led by dancers and choreographers, Helen Gould and George Adams, who generously give solo opportunities to the excellent community cast dancers, Nicola Thomson and the particularly sinuous Edwin Wen.”★★★★☆ Allan Wilson, All Edinburgh TheatreOpen work page
The Yellow River, Shanghai International Dance Center Grand Theatre, 2021.
The Yellow River
One of three rotating principal performers in the production’s sole male lead role. A large-scale symphonic dance poem produced by Shanghai Theatre Academy, performed for six consecutive days.
A major arts commission of the Shanghai Culture Development Foundation, led by choreographer Chen Jianian.Shanghai Theatre Academy, 2021Open work page
Winter Gardens, Blackpool, 2017.
Zootopia
Member of the eight-couple formation team that took first place among fourteen teams at the 2017 Blackpool Junior Dance Festival.
Beijing Baihui Dance’s post-competition report lists Zhenhao Wen among the members of the winning formation team.Beijing Baihui Dance, 2017Open work page
Research
Completed projects, weekly research journals, documentary work, and projects in development.
Bodies Left Out
A seven-week project using solo improvisation, video, and reflection to study how fatigue, hesitation, and emotional experience can be documented.
Returned on Loan
A reflexive video essay with a comparative ethnographic structure, examining how Bishop Museum, the British Museum, and the Louvre present Hawaiian ancestral objects.
Chinese Jingju
Research and film project on how Jingju movement and performance knowledge can be translated for contemporary audiences.
Body Colonization
Research project on how colonial training systems shape movement, posture, and embodied memory.
Photography
Commissioned production photography from two theatre productions. Open each gallery to see the complete series.
Friends
Kobo Abe's tragicomic drama in thirteen scenes, about a family who enters a man's apartment and refuses to leave.
Great Glass Elevator
Production photography from Mark Branner's adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.
CV
Education and selected experience. The full CV includes publications, presentations, funding, performances, and teaching.
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
2025 to present, Honolulu
Ph.D. in Performance StudiesThe University of Edinburgh
2023 to 2024, Edinburgh
M.Sc. Dance Science and EducationShanghai Theatre Academy
2019 to 2023, Shanghai
B.A. Dance PerformanceTeaching
Courses taught, teaching assistantships, guest instruction, and classroom documentation.
DNCE 131 Beginning Contemporary Dance
An introductory contemporary dance course for students with no prior training, focused on weight, breath, space, and movement vocabulary.
Teaching AssistantDNCE 360 Dance Kinesiology and DNCE 255 Global Perspectives on Dance, 2026 to present
Guest Lecturer, Sichuan ConservatoryMAIA Framework and Ballroom Dance Pedagogy, Fall 2024
2:53
Travel
Personal travel archive. Twenty open galleries contain 553 photographs.
Contact
For collaborations, research, teaching, and photography enquiries.