Visual Theater CCOT is a performing
arts group pursuing visual theater, a genre combining the visual arts and
performing arts. Since its founding in 2000 by Cheol-seong Lee and Jin-young
Kim who were studying at the School of Visual Theater in Jerusalem, Israel, the
Company has been active globally. They combine materials of the visual arts
(painting, sculpture and media art), the theater (body, space and objet) and
music (sound and voice) in order to make works exploring the depth of life.
They have also made efforts to transform daily life (including art museums,
streets and alternative spaces) into art space, refusing to be confined to
traditional indoor theaters. Their performances’ esthetic achievements have
been recognized by being invited to Europe’s largest street theater festivals
in France (Chalon dans la rue), Spain (FiraTàrrega), the UK, Russia and Poland.
CCOT pursues the material theater in which
a performance doesn’t come from a text but from an experiment of art materials:
space, body, light, sound, objet, image, drawing material and text.
CCOT creates works by believing that a play
can constitute the art of individual creation. In this context, CCOT pursues
‘self-performance’ where one person or a small number of persons take charge of
creation, directing, acting, design, production and composition. This leads to
the mobility and creativity of the play and to the embodiment of the artist’s own
world in his or her own unique style. The main direction of CCOT’s plays is
thus auteurism.