Choreographers: Howool Baek and Company SIGA
The possibility of what dance can be is the subject of Kontemporary Korea: A Triple Bill of K: Dance at The Place, an evening of work by two choreographers that asks questions about what dance even is and what it should be. With pieces by Howool Baek and a third by Company SIGA, is it dance if the artist stays seated for most of the performance? Baek’s work in particularly has a strangely surrealist quality and likes to obscure the dancers’ faces.
The first, Did U Hear by Baek is an exploration of small and symmetrical movement performed by the choreographer on the floor with her back to the audience. From there we see hands, arms and sometimes upper leg movements in slow, mechanical patterns, like a clockwork toy that sometimes works and sometimes collapses under the strain of effort, even malfunctioning. Managed against a soundtrack of intense industrial clashes and later a far less effective crunching of roots that are harder to synchronise with, it is not clear what Baek’s piece means but the contortion and control of the body is interesting to observe.
The second performance, Foreign Body, is presented as a film but picks up the baton from its predecessor. Also by Baek, this uses a bent over shape with the head at the levels of the knees, obscuring the face once again, to simulate a new kind of creature that Baek then places on film, three dancers poorly superimposed and replicated against still photographs of different places in Berlin, all urban environments in which these new creatures interact with one another. It is often zany, there is something about compliance and dominance in there, and while the concept is certainly inventive, it is not clear what Baek wants to say beyond the strange perspectives of the human body to look entirely unlike itself.
The final section by Company SIGA is a far more traditional dance performance that, like Baek’s work, plays with symmetry and movement to create engaging shapes. But Rush is a mature piece, more confident in its purpose with its two dancers – Hyuk Kwon and Jinyoung Yang – creating a serene and deliberate precision in the changing fast and slow rhythms of the dance. A dynamic section of independent choreography draws them away from one another for a time, but Company SIGA add touchpoints of synchronicity between them as mirroring gives way to a combined rhythm once again.
There is intensity and integrity in Rush that embraces moments of stillness and calm throughout as the performers move like silk through the space, effortlessly covering the floor in elegant sweeping limbs, although the lengthy final chapter which is all music and lighting effects around two unmoving dancers feels superfluous.
Running at 90-minutes including interval, Kontemporary Korea: A Triple Bill of K: Dance is an introspective evening as part of the Festival of Korean Dance 2023, with dance that considers only itself and the physical movement over meaning.
Runs Until 11 May 2023.
