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Korean new wave choreographer Kim Yoon-jin and American director and video artist Dean Moss will bring Hong Kong audiences a trans-cultural dance work, "Kisaeng Becomes You", which is contemporary yet traditional, Asian yet universal.
This visually engaging multi-media production explores the lives of the kisaeng, courtesans of Korea's Joseon Dynasty, and their strikingly contemporary struggles, as revealed in their poems.
Hundreds of years before Japanese geishas, kisaeng were female dancers and entertainers carefully trained and highly accomplished in fine arts, dance, poetry and even medicine. Appreciated only for their beauty and talent, they were disposable people: isolated and marginalised due to the nature of their work and caste. This aesthetically complex performance projects intriguing parallels between the pleasure and pain of the past, and desires and vanity of the present.
With a uniquely designed and interactive set, "Kisaeng Becomes You" offers an ambitious visual narrative in a deeply moving, cutting-edge production. The new work is set to become a thought-provoking addition to the world of contemporary dance.
Dean Moss is a director, choreographer and video artist. His works have been presented and exhibited internationally. He has received an Artist's Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and a New York Dance and Performance BESSIE Award. His video works are included in the collections of The Kitchen and Third World Newsreel. Moss served as the Curator of Dance and Performance for The Kitchen from 1999 to 2004. He is currently a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University.
Kim Yoon-jin was born in Seoul and has studied Korean traditional dance since she was seven. She has danced as a professional since 1992 and was a member of the Real Dance Company for 11 years. In 1995, she received fund grants from "The New Generation's All New Works" with her first choreographed work, "Peeking into a Birdcage".
Kim Yoon-jin committed full time to choreographing in 2002 and founded the Kim Yoon-jin Dance Company in 2005. The company explores new possibilities for Korean contemporary dance by fusing various genres of Korean traditional dance as well as integrating dance and multi-media elements. She choreographed for the Seoul Performing Arts Festival over two consecutive years: "Desire" in 2005 and "The Old Song Book" in 2006. Her work "Stay Still" was performed by the National Dance Company in 2007.
"Kisaeng Becomes You" is one of the programmes of the New Vision Arts Festival organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. Presented in English, the programme will be at 8pm on October 31 and November 1 at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Studio Theatre. A post-performance talk will be held on October 31.
Tickets priced at $120 and $200 are available at URBTIX outlets. Half-price tickets are available for full-time students, senior citizens aged 60 and above, people with disabilities and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance recipients. Group booking discounts of up to 20% are available.
Programme brochures are now available at URBTIX outlets or at the website, www.newvisionfestival.gov.hk
For programme enquiries, please call 2370 1044. Credit card telephone bookings can be made on 2111 5999 and telephone reservations on 2734 9009. Internet bookings can be made at www.urbtix.hk
Ends/Monday, October 6, 2008
Issued at HKT 15:50
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