About the performances:
Playful chaos between the dead and the living presented over the wooden coffin board.
SOUL PIERCING is a piece that was selected and presented through the Korea National Contemporary Dance Company’s 2014 season program “History and Memory: Tradition Reinvented.” It also received an award for dancing and acting from the Korean Association of Dance Critics and Researchers. SOUL PIERCING is based on observations of traditional funeral rites and the bewilderment and the contradictory attitudes seen in such ceremonies. The piece tackles the chaos of the living and dead that floats about the boundaries of death, and interprets it with a grotesquely exaggerated playfulness and imagination. Even within the uncontrollable confusion of death and the inadequacy of existence, there is a touching and desperate explanation hidden in the piece, which aims to peer at death with a hyper-positive gaze.
SHYNESS
Who is he? Do I know him? Why is he greeting to me? People don’t usually figure out me when I wear the glasses. Is he my close acquaintance? I would change my glasses into horn rimmed one. Even though this pair of glasses has been useful to disguise myself, it doesn’t work anymore. But, I am relieved. He just leaves after greeting. If he holds me asking ‘How have you been?’, my liquid eyes would start wavering. My behaviour would be awkward. Out of awkwardness, my tongue would move vastly, making my mouth watery. It seems that every part of my body mocks at my effort to stop this conversation. The man standing in front of me would regard me as a man of failure. Striding through people in this field is still painful to me. Rather than expanding my perspective, it would be better to expand the size of my gut by indulging chinese food. Shit.
About the company:
Bewitch people with unusual strength and skills, play mischievous tricks, and show perverse behavior- Korean traditional monster, goblin, is the symbol of the company. Goblin Party is a group of artists who can both choreograph and dance. Therefore, one specific leader does not lead the company instead one choreographer leads each project and the company.
Since its foundation, Goblin Party actively created dance pieces and invited to many festivals and theaters including 92Y Harkness Dance Center in New York, Internationale Tanzmesse (Germany/Dusseldorf), Spring Awakening festival in Netherlands. The 5th Pays de Danses (Belgium), Saint Petersburg and Moscow as part of Korean dance week in Russia. And we have toured 7 cities in Europe as a part of a program called Korea Moves.
SOUL PIERCING
Directing: LIM Jin-ho
Choreography & Cast: LIM Jin-ho, JI Kyung-min, LEE Kyung-gu, KIM Pyoung-su
Duration: 40 Minutes
SHYNESS
Directing: LIM Jin-ho, LEE Kyung-gu, JI Kyung-min
Cast: LIM JI Kyung-min
Duration: 15 Minutes
The visit of Goblin Party is happening in partnership with Seoul International Choreography Festival.
