Dance and music, the magic of chance
2019 New work of Korea National Contemporary Dance Company Artistic Director, Ahn Sungsoo

Traces of Black Sand is this year’s new production by the artistic director of Korea National Contemporary Dance Company, Ahn Sungsoo, who has repeatedly elicited sensations with his stimulating new work each year.
Current piece reflects Ahn’s typical portrayal of aestheticism: “the beauty of this nation resides in the people,” Ahn mentions, “the dance and music from the people embeds more beauty than anything else.”
Ahn implies his new piece explores the ‘intrinsic beauty that body retains’.
The music is also a noteworthy component of Traces of Black Sand.
Composer Ra Yesong continues her collaboration with Ahn as a composer and a music director for the new piece, after her contribution for Music for Rites – The Afterimages of the Rose, in 2017.
Aligned with Ahn’s traces, the new work also positions the intimacy with music at the center of its focus.

Dance | Exploring the aestheticism of coincidence
Traces of Black Sand is a piece that reveals choreographer Ahn Sungsoo's particular indulgences.
In this piece, Ahn begins by exploring the natural innate beauty of the dancers and finds the points of coincidence between the language of the body and the voice of the music.

Music | New sounds drawn with Korea traditional instruments
Ra Yesong, the composer and music director of Traces of Black Sand has come to be Ahn's musical companion through past collaborations: Music for Rites-The Afterimages of the Rose and Pilgrimage.
Her new piece of music, based on Korean traditional instruments specifically written for the piece, let the piece captures the true sense of the movements in a sensual manner.

Memory | Time with layering of coincidence
Coincidence leaves a mark on time. Just as an array of coincidences fill the time duration of a solid rock turning and turning until it is dispersed as a handful of sand,
coincidences marked in time make our individual existence pure and true. Therefore, we are all participants in the magic of such coincidental actions.