Modern Table Dance Company: Sok-do (Velocity) – The Place, London

Choreographer: Jae-duk Kim

Reviewer: Maryam Philpott

Weekend nights in London are an opportunity to see something entirely new, a series of single or two-night only performances that take audiences into new cultural territory. Last week, Sadler’s Wells presented Chinese choreographer Tao Ye’s 4&9and this week The Place welcome Jae-duk Kim with Modern Table Dance Company: Sok-do (Velocity)as part of their Festival of Korean Dance.

This hour-long performance is a celebration of speed and precision, examining the connection between music and movement. The numerous sections are united not just by the endurance of the dancers who move almost continually for almost 60-minutes but also demonstrates the deterministic relationship between sound and the physical response it creates.

In one of the show’s most accomplished pieces, the unusual musical composition takes precedence, opening with a choral-like creation that layers several vocal performances, taking on a chant-like quality during which four dancers spin slowly on their shoulders. Each also has a microphone which they then use to create different thudding and scraping sounds as they tap the top or lay against their costume. The position of the microphone varies the sound and whether it is in their hands or left on the floor the resultant sound energises and organically results in a corresponding movement.

Kim’s approach is choreographically very interesting, using changes of pace that mix a frantic series of shakes and contortions in which the performers look almost possessed by an unseen force with exacting and sudden stillness, a series of complex poses to hold. Equally, Kim controls the pacing in different ways by using changing formations, sometimes soloists, sometimes combinations of two, three, or very occasionally all eight dancers who work together or swoop across the stage for a few moments.

Musicians Seung-Joon Jeong, Dong-hoon Kim and So-li Kim create one of the most unexpected compositions you will hear played on a couple of Ajaeng instruments with sparing use of drums and a tin gong to create different beats. One of Sok-do (Velocity)’s most notable features is the variability of styles that creates a true fusion with tones of traditional Korean, folk and Celtic-inspired music, with one of the latter rock-inspired pieces even recalling the 1960s Rolling Stones.

This variability is noted through the dance as well, merging ballet, contemporary styles, gymnastic twists and acrobatics, bhangra, and at one point even a bouncy movement that originates in the ankles akin to a jig. All of this co-exists within the same show, borrowing and seamlessly knitting all of these styles together to form an unusual but impressive whole.

In the show’s final section it starts to run out of steam, and the approach becomes a little unvarying, but the strength and stamina of dancers Jeong-sik Choi, Tae-jun Han, Han-soi Kim, Lae-hyuk Kim, Nam-hoon Kim, Jung-in Lee, Un-gi Lee and Kim himself is never less than outstanding. Britain’s cultural output may defy cuts to arts funding to be transferred and revered all over the world, but weekends in London are where the world comes to us, even if it is for one night only.

Runs until: 31 May 2019 | Image: Lee Jin-Young