Dance performances welcome spring

Universal Ballet Company’s “Swan Lake” / Courtesy of Universal Ballet Company

By Kwon Mee-yoo

The nation's top dance companies from ballet to contemporary dance are offering their best and new repertoires to welcome the new season. Here is a list of must-see dance performances from various genres ready to delight dance fans.

Ballet

The nation's two top ballet companies open the new season with major works.

First is the Universal Ballet Company (UBC), which stages "Swan Lake" at the Universal Arts Center in eastern Seoul until April 3. The ballet composed by Tchaikovsky is a favorite in Korea.

The UBC’s "Swan Lake" is based on the 1895 Marius Petipa-Lev Ivanov edition, which maintains the classical beauty of the piece. A ballerina dances dual roles in "Swan Lake" ― the pure ingenue Odette and the evil but enchanting Odile ― making the lead role more challenging. Still, it is a dream role for many ballet dancers and Swan Lake has become a gateway for budding talents.

For this run, the UBC invited the Bolshoi Ballet's principal dancers Ekaterina Krysanova and Semyon Chudin, who will dance on March 25 and 27.

The UBC's principal dancer Hwang Hye-min will dance with her longtime partner and husband Ohm Jae-yong as well as Lee Dong-tak, while Kang Mi-sun will dance with Konstantin Novoselov.

Among the young dancers, Hong Hyang-gi will debut as Odette/Odile and Kang Min-woo as her counterpart Prince Siegfried. Feifei Ye, the UBC's solist from China, will dance with Maxim Chashchegorov, first soloist of the Bavarian State Ballet in Munich, Germany.

For more information, visit www.universalballet.com or call 070-7124-1737.

The Korea National Ballet (KNB) opens the season with "La Bayadere" at Opera Theater of Seoul Arts Center in southern Seoul from March 30 to April 3.

The piece is based on the 1977 Petipa edition later revised by Yuri Grigorovich for the Bolshoi Ballet in 1991 and for the KNB in 2013. The ballet, known for its grand scale featuring over 120 dancers and 200 costumes, revolves around temple dancer Nikiya, her lover the warrior Solor and Princess Gamzatti.

The KNB said "La Bayadere" will offer characteristic dances as well as a heightened quality of the corps de ballet.

Principal dancers for the KNB, including Lee Eun-won, Kim Li-hoe, Park Seul-ki, Lee Dong-hoon, Lee Young-cheol and Friedemann Vogel from the Stuttgart Ballet, will dance the three lead roles.

For more information, visit www.kballet.org or call 02-587-6181.

Heading to France

2016 marks the 130th anniversary of diplomatic ties between France and Korea and the two countries have prepared many cultural events and exchanges to commemorate the occasion. Two upcoming performance pieces from the National Dance Company of Korea (NDCK) and the Korea National Contemporary Dance Company (KNCDC) are part of the exchange.

The NDCK’s "Shigane Nai," which literally means "age of time" in Korean, is the proud opening performance of the 2015/2016 Korea-France Bilateral Exchange, running until Sunday at the Main Hall HAE of the National Theater of Korea on Namsan Mountain.

Co-produced by the National Theater of Korea and France's Theatre National de Chaillot, French choreographer Jose Montalvo helmed the production. Montalvo took inspiration from the dynamic yet slow movements of traditional Korean dance which he combined with modern dance. He also incorporated the joyous movement of Korean dance in which dancers play percussion instruments while performing.

"Modern dance suffers from pursuing modern things only by ruling out all the past," the choreographer said.

Fast electronic music will be twisted with Korean rhythms and percussion, to be mixed in French composer Ravel's dance piece "Bolero."

After the premiere in Seoul, "Shigane Nai" will be staged at Theatre National de Chaillot from June 16 to 24.

For more information, visit www.ntok.go.kr or call 02-2280-4114.

The KNCDC presents "AlreadyNotYet" at CJ Towol Theater of Seoul Arts Center on April 1 and 2.

Choreographed by Ahn Ae-soon, the dance reinterprets life and death based on Korean shamanism.

Premiered in 2014, "AlreadyNotYet" is a major repertoire of the KNCDC inspired by "kkokdu," or the wooden figures used for traditional Korean funeral ceremonies. Ahn's characteristic playfulness and improvisation liven up the dance, which embraces death as a part of life.

"AlreadyNotYet" has been invited to France as a part of the Korea-France Year and will be performed at Jean Vilar of Theatre National de Chaillot in Paris from June 9 to 11. After the Paris run, it will tour Theatre de Liege in Belgium on June 14 and the Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Romania on June 17.

For more information, visit kncdc.kr or call 02-3472-1420.