2017 New Piece by Artistic Director Ahn Sungsoo

A festive ritual with the beauty of Korean dancers and human emotions.
A story from the ancient past to the far future through mixture, expansion, compression and refinement!

Rising composer Ra Yesong’s minimal music composed of Korean traditional instruments, and maximal dance woven closely by the second!
a delicate and natural movement across the past and present, a near-perfect essence of art of contemporary dance!

Korea National Contemporary Dance Company presents the first new piece by Artistic Director Ahn Sungsoo (born in 1962), at Seoul Arts Center CJ Towol Theater from this July 28 to 30.

is an extension from Director Ahn Sungsoo’s previous work (premiered in 2009) and (premiered in 2016), continuing the exploration and experiment through the deconstruction and reconfiguration of Korean dance and Western dance. A 60-min long piece of dance music composed with over 15 types of Korean traditional instruments by Ra Yesong (born in 1985), a graduate of Korea National University of Arts, School of Korean Traditional Arts, will be performed live, and KNCDC’s dancers selected last January will perform. After the premier, is set to be performed in the regional cultural centers of Hongseong (August), Hamyang (September), Gyeryong (September) and Cheonan (October), and invited to three cities of Colombia (International Dance Biennial of Cali, Medellín Metropolitan Theatre, Teatro Mayor in Bogotá; November).

The work was motivated from witnessing the mixture of Islam and Spain cultures in Granada, Spain, in 2016. Marvelling at the encounter and mixture of two cultures reborn as a more splendid and beautiful one, the choreographer was immersed in the various ‘immixtures’ in history and culture; of Western culture and ancient Korean culture that had been spread far into Europe, of humans and the nature in the far past, and of the past and the present. Like the Spanish flamenco music and the dance of warriors like ‘haka’ of the Maori in New Zealand that men danced before departing for battles to protect their lands, various elements of immixture in human history and culture become motifs to tell the story from the far past to the far future. A rite is given not as a ritual for the dead but as a joyful festival, presenting the emotions of human affairs with the nature and humans, men and women, dance and music, in a compressed an refined way.

Director Ahn Sungsoo says that showing the beauty of Korean dancers dancing to the composed dance music with only Korean traditional instruments is the most important purpose of this piece. Through an infinite experiment of deconstruction and reconfiguration by laying out each and every movement without any separation of genre such as ballet, Korean dance, or Western dance, and newly creating appropriate combinations, Ahn Sungsoo briskly mixed not only external movements but also breaths and musical flows to create unique movements. In , which was presented last year and again this March, Ahn Sungsoo introduced his unique movements that first appear as the mixing of Korean dance in the upper body and Western dance in the lower, but really is more densely mixed. In this work with fifteen dancers, he presents a blending of movements that have evolved to be more flexible and dynamic. He has expanded not only the form of movements but also the approach to dance. While he had taken ‘chunaengmu’ as the motif of and delivered the message through ‘kalchum’, the new piece presents ‘ogomu’. He newly uses an innovative rhythm that is not used in traditional ogomu, and the dance movements and breathing modified from drum melodies show the acme of ‘immixture’. The audiences are encouraged to expect a rare scene, transcending their imaginations. Also, as it can be inferred from the title, this new piece is deeply related to Ahn Sungsoo’s , premiered in 2009. is a work that celebrated ‘women and earth’ based on Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’. At the beginning stage of the production, choreographer Ahn Sungsoo had suggested playing ‘The Rite of Spring’ with Korean traditional instruments, to composer Ra Yesong. But deciding that bringing a Western musical piece directly unto Korean traditional instruments would be a meaningless arrangement since Korean traditional instruments have a different musical language, the two artists redirected their orientation to create new music with ‘rite’ as the motif. In this process, Ra Yesong focused not on ‘The Rite of Spring’ but Ahn Sungsoo’s , and amidst the endless conversations about it, she understood ‘women’ as the symbolic word that represents Ahn Sungsoo’s choreographic viewpoint. Thinking not about the rose as in the flower in general, but all the flowers and women in the past that have been called roses, Ra Yesong was inspired to compose music beyond the first impression of the rose in its fancy colors and petals, for a rite for the women who blossomed their lives without recognition of others. is a title that was born from the efforts of imagining their fragrances and embracing their emotions in music.

Director Ahn Sungsoo wanted the music to be thoroughly consisted of traditional instruments, and composer Ra Yesong also insisted on using traditional instruments instead of the improved ones. Based on this common understanding, processes of choreography and composition were completely simultaneous. When music was produced, the choreographer went on to configure each movement scene. And Ra Yesong worked on the next piece with inspiration from the dancers practicing. Through such two-sided feedback, music and choreography elaborately completed themselves like the warp and weft of textiles, repeating the process of ‘fixing, changing, discarding and rewriting’ the notes and movements, music and dance. The minimal music arranged with gayageum, geomungo, daegeum, haegeum, piri and traditional percussions encounters the maximal dance woven by the second. On this stage, along with Choi Soojin (Ceder Lake Contemporary Ballet, New York / Dancing 9 Season 2, 3) and Seong Changyong (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, MOMIX), selected through audition last January, Lee Yoonhee, Lee Yoojin, Kim Minjin, Seo Bokwon, Kim Sungwoo, Bae Hyoseob, Park Hwiyeon, Sohn Daemin, Jeong Yoonjung, and those who appeared in , Kim Jiyeon, Kim Minji, Kim Hyun, and practice director cum dancer Lee Joohee will perform the densely composed movements and express the musical variations. To overcome the great speed, they are pressing ahead with strenuous practices. The music will be performed live by five players, Ko Jinho (daegeum), Bae Seungbin (piri), Lee Yookyeong (haegeum), Hong Sangjin (percussion), and Hong Yejin (gayageum), continuing an elaborate conversation with the fifteen dancers.