Intro
About
Korea National Contemporary Dance Company's Asian Choreographer Project
Overviewing the current Asia with the theme of 'Family'
Through dance, it sheds light on the narrative of the contemporary Asian families,
which exist in diverse forms such as one person household, alternative family or social family,
deviating from the traditional concept of family centered around blood relations.
Kuik Swee Boon, the artistic director of T.H.E. Dance Company in Singapore, who delivers the identity and experience through movement
Reisa Shimojima who deals with the contemporary issues of Japanese society
Lee Min kyong of Korea, who endlessly attempts to expand the genre
One can encounter different forms and meanings of ‘family’, interpreted by the three distinct perspectives from each choreographer.
Movie
Photo
♡[Heart] explores the aspect of family relationships that change and not, in the rapidly changing society and the fast approaching digital future. They are the comrades, who together fight against the difficult life problems of birth, ageing, sickness and death, on the one hand, and ‘the unbearable lightness of being’, on the other hand, with the heavy ceremonies around coming of age, wedding, funeral, and ancestral rites, as well as the small pleasures of everyday life. Now in an era where blood-related communities are becoming thin, where will they find the familial intimacy and safety? Where’s our true ♡?
“I left my womb in my mother’s body. Because no other creature who would receive more love from my mom than me should be born in this world.”
What is blood relation? At times the existence of family can be terrifying. When considered from the scale of the cosmos, things such as blood relation may have no usage. Reisa Shimojima interchanges “what cannot be discussed with people who share the same cultural background” with the Korean dancers, revealing the other side of the families and modern society of Japan and other Asian countries.
In Burma, there is a traditional fable called ‘The Four Puppets’. Before the onset of an adventure, the protagonist of this tale receives four puppets as presents from his father as he leaves his home. The first three puppets each represents wisdom, strength and knowledge, and the fourth puppet symbolizes virtue and peace. The fourth puppet, which struggles and thrives for the mental advancement while living in solitude, describes oneself as the cloud floating in the sky, and is free from wealth and authority, has no cravings for being shrewd or needing to compare. Through this fourth puppet, Kuik Swee Boon inspects the relationship between parents and children.
Credits
Choreography
Lee Min kyoung has worked on dances and performances with a special interest in dance as an experience and the state of psychological certainty. Lee has continued to experiment the format of theaters and performances by inventing the way to incorporate real-time experiments into the play and the performance game where the audience becomes the main principal of the performance. Lee has a master's degree in choreography from the University of Montpellier III and National Choreographic Center (CCN) in France. Lee is co-founder of Sweet and Tender Collaboration, a network of international artists, and a recipient of the German Academy Schloss Solitude Fellowship, DanceWeb European Scholarship, and Creative New Zealand Fund for Research and Development. Lee has recently served as a occupying artist at the Changdong Residency of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and Geumcheon Art Factory.
Born in 1992, Shimojima Reisa began dancing in her hometown of Kagoshima, Japan, at the age of 7. Shimojima primarily performed jazz dance and traditional Japanese Yosakoi dance, and majored in contemporary dance at J.F. Oberlin University. Shimojima was later featured in the works of other choreographers, such as Kuniko Kisanuki, Chieko Ito, and Ryohei Condors. Since the establishment of the KEDAGORO Dance Company in 2013, Shimojima has been in charge of the choreography and production of all the works. Shimojima's solo work "Monkey in a Diaper" premiered at the Yokohama Dance Collection, and was invited to more than 10 places in Japan and abroad. In 2018, Shimojima performed "Monkey in a Diaper" at the first Asian Comic Dance Festival in Hanam, and also showcased "Sky" at the 2019 Seoul World Dance Festival.
Kuik Swee Boon is an art director of the T.H.E Dance Company and the CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival in Singapore, and also served as a co-director of the Malaysian D'motion International Dance Company from 2013 to 2015. Kuik was the first male dancer from Asia to serve in the Spanish National Dance Company from 2002 to 2007, working mainly with famous choreographers, such as Jiří Kylián, Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin and Wim Vandekeybus. Prior to his work with the Spanish National Dance Company, Kuik began his dance career at the Singapore People's Dance Company in 1990 and was a senior dancer at the Singapore Dance Theatre until 2002. Kuik was nominated for the Benois de la Danse in 2003 and won Young Artist Award from the National Arts Council, Singapore in 2007. Since its inception in 2008, T.H.E Dance Company has grown rapidly and established itself as a famed dance company in Singapore. Critically acclaimed works "Silence" (2007), "As It Fades" (2011), a collaborative work "Re:OK...BUT!" (2011) and "Above 40" (2015) were considered the best works of the time, and Kuik's works have been invited to major international festivals. Kuik began further developing the "HollowBody" methodology through his work in 2016. This methodology is oriented towards a performer who is capable of communicating one’s identity and experience through a spectrum of physical, emotional, philosophical and meaningful expressions.
Dance
-
Kim Esl
-
Lim Semi
-
Jo Hyundo
-
Lee Min Kyoung
-
Shimojima Reisa
-
Bae Hyosub
-
Lee Kyunggu
-
Lee Gyeongjin
-
Jung Chaemin