The Korea National Contemporary Dance Company was founded by the country’s culture ministry in 2010, and is in London for A Festival of Korean Dance, hosted by the Place. On Wednesday’s opening night the company presented Immixture, by the choreographer Ahn Sungsoo, who trained in Seoul and at Juilliard in New York. Danced by five performers, and set to a diverse soundtrack including Korean chants, Turkish percussion and works by Schumann, the piece encompasses a multiplicity of themes, presented in a fleetingly allusive style.
The opening solo is very beautiful. A female performer enters in an updated version of traditional court dress. In this costume of gauzy white silk, its fitted waist flaring into voluminous petal folds, with underskirts of red and black, the dancer appears to float over the stage. As her feet execute soundless tripping steps, her arms weave lyrically and enigmatically. Here, as in all the sequences that follow, we see the outward, physical projection of the dancer’s inner emotions. The woman in the white dress is replaced by others in black pyjama suits. Like all the costumes by this (uncredited) designer, they are exquisitely conceived and cut. The dancers move seamlessly through coolly sustained balances, and a radiant calligraphy of torso and limb. Arms glide like wings, legs extend in flickering stabs, bodies are held in quiet equipoise.
The costumes are mostly black, Ahn tells us in a talk after the performance, because much of the choreography is inspired by Korean shamanistic ritual dances for the dead. If Immixture has an overarching theme, it is that death is always present in life, either as a possibility or an actuality. “Life can be taken away at any moment,” the choreographer tells us. The company performed in Paris at the Chaillot theatre in June 2016, as part of a Korea-France year, and elements of Immixture express a mute sympathy for those involved in the terrorist attacks of the previous November. There’s an extended passage where a female dancer stands unmoving on the stage. Minutes pass, and her expression gradually becomes one of acute distress. She begins to shudder, until her whole body is seized with violent shaking. “We wanted to show to the people of Paris that we are attuned to their pain,” Ahn explains.
His dancers are trained in classical ballet and western contemporary dance as well as traditional Korean dance. The company’s single male dancer performs a hip-hop sequence while listening to Eminem on headphones. Around him, meanwhile, his female colleagues are dancing to the Turkish percussion. As its title suggests, this piece is nothing if not eclectic, and there are elements and references which, to western eyes, seem mysterious. At the same time we see, throughout it all, the universal structures of dance. The spiralling body, the core strength, the radiant limbs, the epaulement. Ahn’s mission is to introduce Korean contemporary dance to the world stage. His language is elegant and his fundamental message simple: we are you and you are we. This is the first UK festival of Korean dance. Let’s hope it’s the first of many.
