Wacky travel show a hit at Langara
Langara alumnus documents his trips to share with his audiences
Reported by Kim Lau
A Langara photography alumnus’s passion for documenting his travels enabled him to share his unique experience with a wide audience. It was the simple joy of meeting the people on his travels that made him feel lucky and happy.
“The people I met in Tibet, Burma and India are incredibly funny, kind and happy people. The more remote I’ve been, the kinder people are. Simpler life makes it more joyful,” William Jans said.
Jans is a professional photographer who graduated from Langara’s photography department and has a knack for storytelling using images he captured on his travels around the world.
That’s the pull to his long-standing travel shows, which have been seen by 80,000 Canadians over 17 years.
His latest show, A Man, A Plan, Japan, was performed at Langara on March 22.
“I’ve produced nine different shows in total. And I’m very proud to have received a standing ovation for the sold-out Shadows in Morocco show which premiered on March 15,” Jans said.
A sense of adventure
Jans said that his sense of adventure, his willingness to assimilate with the locals and learn their languages while looking for the positives in people, opened himself up to absurd events which enriched his narratives and provided a sense of the unexpected, which his viewers love about him.
The A Man, A Plan, Japan performance at Langara was Tim Nim’s second viewing.
“Jans’s narration was very good. He made it very interesting to follow along. And the way he combined still photographs to video clips made it more entertaining and interesting. It was very good,” Nim said.
Eric and Caroline Liu first saw the show about five years ago. Since then, they have visited Japan three times.
Last Friday, they returned to the theatre to reminisce about their time in Japan.
“Jans’s show was a bit of a reference as to where to go when we finally made the trip to Japan, three times in all.”
“We went to a lot of the places Jans talked about,” Caroline Liu said.
“We were able to compare what we did and what he did. We love it,” Liu said.
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