The thriving contemporary dance scene in Korea gets its annual showcase, now in its sixth year in London, and touring for the first time too. It opens with a double bill from the Korea National Contemporary Dance Company, with works by Jaeyoung Lee, founder of Company Siga, and London-based Sung Im Her, who recently impressed with her movement direction on Paradise Now! at the Bush theatre.
There are coincidental similarities between the two pieces. Both involve rhythmic repetition, the power of unison and a slow crescendo that leads to everybody jumping gleefully up and down (a formula that ensures a certain amount of audience satisfaction), but they have their own signatures.
First, Lee’s piece, Mechanism, sees individual dancers start with the simplest trying out of wrists and knees, before linking body parts with each other in an angular puzzle, integrating limbs like cogs in a bigger machine. When a metronomical pulse gives way to soulful piano riff, the mood instantly changes, but the dancers remain coolly controlled, as if not even breaking a sweat (they must be, only their semi-opaque bodysuits don’t show it).
Sung Im Her’s Everything Falls Dramatic feels the stronger piece, not least because of Her’s own presence. A former dancer with Jan Fabre, Les Ballets C de la B and Needcompany in Belgium, she’s a fantastic mover, but also an engaging personality, whether she’s eyeing the audience in a bonus solo while the the stage is being swept, or delightedly stomping and bouncing at the climax of the piece.
Everything Falls Dramatic is built on repeated motifs that gather potency with time. It’s based on the idea of growth and decay, life and death essentially, with that pattern set on repeat – it’s a more human picture than Lee’s mechanical scene, with changing textures and momentum and everyday-ish clothes. Within its shifting phases, there are moments when everything comes into focus. At one point, the dancers all rise together on their knees as if swept on a wave, their heads flung back as one, and it’s like tuning violin strings when you hit a perfect fifth and all of a sudden it sings.
A Festival of Korean Dance continues to 11 May at The Place, Warwick Arts Centre, The Lowry, Salford, and The Dance Space, Brighton.
