Performance Info

Founded in 2007, Goblin Party has performed nationally and internationally using a traditional Korean monster goblin as its symbol. As the company consists of artists who can both choreograph and dance, a choreographer or a leader may differ from piece to piece. Goblin Party places emphasis on communication and is interested in producing a performance that extends the vision of audience. Goblin Party creates pieces based on deep research about human who face familiar or new situations Many situations which a human being experiences make several phenomena and invisible, diverse emotion. ’Goblin Party’ usually go through human’s emotion and physical respond which emerge from familiar or new situations and experiences. And we create stories to imagine and meditate all we experiences and feel.

Choreographer & Dancer JI, Kyung Min
Choreographer & Dancer LIM, Jin Ho
Choreographer & Dancer LEE, Kyoung gu

Interview

Q: GOBLINPARTY was established 10 years ago. Tell us about your group’s name and members.

JI Kyung-min: Goblin Party is a modern dance team composed of 10 professional choreographers with individual dance creations under their belt. We’re all friends from college who enjoy working together. We wanted to create a team name that would be attractive to global audiences. Someone suggested dokkaebi, or Korean goblin, which has its roots in Korean folklore and has a friendly, mischievous image. And, in gaming, we talk about partners “forming a party,” so we chose the word “party” to mean a group of like-minded people coming together to create quality work.

LIM Jin-ho: We choreograph our performances through “co-creation” because one single individual’s perspective cannot always be right. We believe that if we include ideas from different people, we can deliver a meaningful message to many more audiences. All choreographers have their own method of creation, so it’s impossible to meld everything perfectly into one. That’s why we adopted the philosophy of “walking on the same road in the same direction” with a “direction suggester” or “arranger” guiding the way. In “Play Ground,” Lee Kyoung-gu was the “arranger” who would look at the work from an outside perspective.

JI Kyung-min: A strange hierarchy is often formed when the credits refer to “choreographer” and “dancer.” We founded Goblin Party to create good performances among equals, with the dancer and choreographer becoming one. We believed co-creation would lead to better, more artistic dance performances.

LEE Kyoung-gu: When the “arranger” decides the direction of a particular work, he or she doesn’t do it alone. Goblin Party members all gather together for discussion. We talk about feelings that we haven’t expressed yet in our dances or situations that have touched our hearts. We then discuss what kind of characters and spaces we want to create. After gathering all the suggestions, we develop them into one unified story.

LIM Jin-ho: We wanted objects to look like distinct personalities. In the beginning, Goblin Party was a very small team, so we used objects to make ourselves and our movements look bigger. We had a lot of fun using objects in ways other than their original purpose. These objects became central in determining the direction of the choreography and established the relationship between object and dancer as well as between dancer and dancer.

JI Kyung-min: “Once Upon a Time” was created based on the recognition that beautiful traditional Korean attire, such as the gat (hat), beoseon (socks), and durumagi (outer coat), was generally being ignored in the performing arts. So, one day, we all put on durumagi for a dance practice and noticed that everyone instinctively kicked the bottom of their coats and straightened their collars. It was if our bodies had been trained to react to the objects according to traditional methods. At first, we thought we should present objects according to their pure form, but now we realize it should be the exact opposite.

LEE Kyoung-gu: We once had a discussion about how we’d like audiences to react to Goblin Party, and we talked about personal experiences of comfort. I remembered walking past a playground where kids were playing noisily. It was such a lovely sight that I sat on a bench just to watch them having fun. When I walked away, that feeling of pleasure and comfort suddenly vanished. This became the inspiration for “Play Ground.” In a playground, children create and develop their own games and make toys from dirt or tree branches. Like kids in a playground, we wanted to show how fun, creative processes can take place in a single, defined space. We also imagined what kids would do if we took away the swings, slides, and sandboxes of a playground and gave them objects that adults normally use, such as briefcases. Based on that premise, we built robots out of briefcases and playground equipment out of human bodies. We also used a few simple objects and our bodies to create different kinds of games.

LIM Jin-ho: “Silver Knife” (“Eun-jang-do”) was the first work for which Ji Kyung-min and I were the “arrangers.” We wanted to create a work for our female members. We recalled a performance by dancer Kim Won, whose dance movements were so sharp and powerful that people referred to her as a “silver blade.” She inspired us to create this work, to which we added more context and detail.

JI Kyung-min: “Silver Knife” depicts four strong, independent women who live on an island. There is a humorous pun intended here, since the Korean word “do” can mean both “blade” and “island.” Life on this island is similar to life as we know it: there are moments of joy and anger, song and dance, and even rap. In one scene, dancers put on work gloves and use a drill to build a cube-like chair. The women deftly handle all matters of life without any help from the outside world.

LEE Kyoung-gu: Those works are not only for children, but also for moms and dads; we want to create dance performances for the entire family. One day, we were performing “Once Upon a Time” on an outdoor stage. We weren’t doing anything particularly spectacular, but the kids who happened to be there chuckled with glee and had a lot of fun watching us. It was a wonderful new sensation for me as a performer. I felt myself moving in and out of the stage and the fourth wall crumbling down.
When creating a show for a particular audience, we do think about the choreography from a different perspective. We find ways to interact with the audience in between scenes. For example, we ask spectators to clap and follow our dance moves, and we create situations from which the show cannot proceed until the audience participates.

LEE Kyoung-gu: Making a dance is similar to giving birth to and raising a child. You don’t want your child to stay in one place. You want to take him on trips so that he can experience the world. Just as a child matures, I think a dance performance continues to develop and grow as it encounters diverse people, situations, and stages.

JI Kyung-min: It takes a lot of time, effort, and dedication to create one single dance. “I hope the performance isn’t boring” is another way of saying that the performance better be entertaining. Being entertaining is the only way to have a repeat show. We began creating dance films after contemplating how we could develop and improve our performances. We recently screened our dance film “Play Ground” before one of our performances. Since “Play Ground” has many movements made in rapid succession, we hoped the film could be a commentary that assists the audience in appreciating the performance that follows. We plan to continue making films for our new dances.

JI Kyung-min: In Goblin Party’s early years, we struggled to think of ways to make our performance not seem like a dance show. We wanted to break free from the misperception that [modern] dance is boring and difficult. That’s why we added song, dialogue, and other elements to the movements. Looking back, these were all attempts to make our dance performances more attractive. These days, however, we want our program to look like modern dance. At the same time, we always reflect on how we can improve people’s perception of dance.

LIM Jin-ho: I recently watched the musical “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” twice. The running time is three hours, yet its main character powerfully carries the show and doesn’t allow the audience to get bored for one second. My personal goal is to stage a solo performance, so I always think about how to create a dance show that will keep an audience captivated until the very end.

JI Kyung-min: I think it’s very beautiful and ideal to create a work together as a group, but sometimes I think the storytelling element suffers. There is greater power in one person thoughtfully writing a story, choosing every word carefully, than in one person speaking impromptu. In the past, we would first meet and then create dance movements all together. But now, with a “direction suggester,” we share our ideas for moves before we meet. This is a new challenge for us. Instead of abandoning our former method, we are introducing changes little by little and throwing out what no longer works for us.

LEE Kyoung-gu: Our repertoire is becoming increasingly diverse. Dancing for an entire performance is very different from dancing for a one- or two-minute video clip—but both have their charms. We want to continue challenging ourselves and fearlessly create dance content not only for the theater, but other types of media.

Production Details

〈Once Upon A Time〉
〈Silver Knife〉
〈PLAY GROUND〉
〈Fox and Dolphin〉
〈I GO〉
〈Passive and active〉
〈Relief〉

- 2020 CDE Spring board, Macau
- 2020 H.D.X Festival, Hong Kong
- 2019 Japan Society ’Contemporary Dance Festival,’ USA
- 2019 Za-Koenji Dance Award, Japan
- 2019 Darmstadt DAS Theatre, Germany
- 2019 The Place ’A Festival of Korean Dance,’ UK
- 2019 T.H.E. Second Company ’CoLabAsian,’ Singapore

www.goblinparty.co.kr
koreagoblinparty
goblin_party