Forthcoming ChangMu dance festival to explore world hit by COVID-19 pandemic
Seoul Gyobang's “Yul” / Courtesy of ChangMu Performing Arts Festival
By Park Ji-won
The 27th ChangMu Performing Arts Festival will present 13 contemporary performances by local dance companies at the ARKO Arts Theater and Gangdong Arts Center from Aug. 25 to 29.
Themed, “The width of the world, the depth of the perspective,” the five-day festival aims to explore our feelings on living amid the COVID-19 pandemic through the eyes of performing artists and dance performances.
The ChangMu International Performing Arts Festival was launched back in 1993 by the ChangMu Arts Center, with the aim of promoting artistic exchanges among performing artists and performing arts companies from different regions and countries. The dance festival has especially highlighted works by Asian choreographers who combine traditional culture with contemporary styles.
The festival has previously introduced choreographed performances from abroad to Korean audiences. However, due to the spread of COVID-19, it decided not to invite international dance companies this year, and instead organized this year's festival with only local dance companies.
This year, the festival launched the Changmu Dream Prize, awarded to the most creative dance work out of the six choreographed dance performances. The winner will be given 10 million won ($8,707).
The opening performance, slated for Aug. 25 at the ARKO Arts Theater, will be Seoul Gyobang's “Yul,” choreographed by Kim Ji-young, in which a group of dancers move in sync, based on a traditional bare-handed “salpurichum” (exorcism dance).
Artist and choreographer Lee Jung In of Lee Jung In CREATION will share her thoughts about loss due to COVID-19 in the performance, “Share and Coexistence. part1. 2㎡.”
Company SIGA's “ZERO,” choreographed by Kwon Hyuk, is a performance that takes the physical body as a subject in itself, and shows the transcendent phenomena that emerge from the body in extreme conditions.
The closing performance, “Soul Piercing,” by Goblin Party, will express the contradictory attitudes people reveal during funerals with humorous and grotesque movements at the ARKO Arts Theater on Aug. 28. The piece, which won an award from the Korean Association of Dance Critics and Researchers in 2015, is based on observations of the choreographer's experiences as a funeral director.
On the sidelines of the event, Kim Mae-ja, founder of the festival and ChangMu Dance Company in 1976, will hold the Chumbon II workshop for dancers and others from Aug. 20 to 22 in Goseong, Gangwon Province. She is known for her creative dance works that blend traditional dance forms with modern tastes.