Performance Info

99 Art Company, which was founded in 2014, is made up of artists from several fields and anchored by Jang Hye-rim. It advocates art that is beautiful in both form and substance through a “99% perspiration, 1% inspiration” approach. 99 Art Company creates contemporary art based on stories of contemporary people, a solid understanding of traditional Korean dance, and the group’s motto, “dance that resonates with the soul,” through which it focuses on genuine expression.

Artistic Director Jang, Hye Rim
Rehearsal Director Lee, Go Woon

Interview

Q: “Silence” (2016) and “Breathing Swing” (2015) are two of the most well-known performances in your repertoire for their ability to “touch the soul.” Can you briefly introduce both?

Jang Hye-rim: “Breathing Swing” encapsulates my passion and desire to regain a healthy level of self-confidence. I was at a point where my self-esteem had fallen quite low, and I was avoiding interacting with others: I wanted to solve both of these issues through dance. I also wanted to create something that gives solace to the audience while addressing the emotions that lie deepest in the heart. Fortunately, I was able to overcome a period of personal difficulty through this dance. The title is taken from a novel, Atemschaukel (Breath Swing), by German writer Herta Müller on the rampant poverty, famine, and suffering that were caused by cold and hunger in 1945, just after World War II, from the perspective of 17-year-old Leo. It was while reading the novel that I got the idea for “Silence.” I thought a lot about how to express a novel, whose building blocks are words, through dance. There is a part of the performance in which the dancers, amid complete silence, repeatedly say “yes,” starting from a whisper and speaking increasingly louder. There are also times when the dancers mouth the word without sound. I wanted to convey emotion through the refusal to be silent even amid war and the oppression that comes from it.

Jang Hye-rim: In the Old Testament, it was the “fragrance” of the burnt offering that was offered up to (and pleased) God. I was moved by the noble beauty of our version of the burnt offering: in other words, creating meaning from our time spent working and living, through which we progress toward the moment of death. Through this dance, I wanted to convey the message that the viewer’s life has value and is beautiful. At the beginning, the dancers make repetitive lines with charcoal, resulting in the shape of a flower. The gradual blackening of the dancers’ bodies because of the charcoal is a visualization of the “burning” of the previously clean body. I also added the beat of the traditional Korean seungmu and created a rhythm from the sounds of work: you can hear the dancers’ breathing and bodily sounds mixed in with the music. There is a part of the seungmu that involves beating a drum. The repetitive “beating” of drums represented by the dancers’ head lanterns shows how a workers’ repeated actions change over time. The dance is very physically taxing: the dancers are literally covered in sweat by the end. Nevertheless, it allows us to show, on the stage, what physical labor looks like. I also wanted to show that work is not all toil—that there are moments of joy.

Lee Go-woon: The movements of “Burnt Offering” embody how hard people work and how much their lives mean to them. While doing research on the movements, we observed the motions that are made during physical labor and tried to show as many of them as possible in this dance. Each time I perform as a dancer in “Burnt Offering,” I feel like I am supplicating to heaven for something.

Jang Hye-rim: I stayed in Sweden for two months while working with Skånes Dansteater. During this time, I thought constantly about how dancers of two very different cultures (and ways of dancing) could engage meaningfully in cultural exchange. I eventually decided to teach the Swedish dancers the seungmu. They were very intrigued by the newness of the principles of Korean dance movements as well as Korean culture. Korean dance is characterized by the use of the ground as the base, with the lower body serving as the starting point of movement for the entire body. The Swedish dancers were especially interested in the creation of a “path” for one’s breathing, or “circulatory breathing,” as we often refer to it. I was happy that they were accepting of Korean culture—especially because my focus is contemporary interpretation of traditional Korean dance. Skånes Dansteater is made up of dancers from many different countries, and each of them has a different notion of the scope and meaning of labor. I applied the feedback I got from them to various parts of “Burnt Offering.” This collaboration was a chance for me to grow a lot as a choreographer.

Jang Hye-rim: Our motto, “dance that resonates with the soul,” has been a good anchor for our philosophy and techniques from our earliest days. Each of our projects is done as a collaborative effort of myself and the dancers. The dancers help design each scene as co-directors, which means that their personal stories end up finding their way into the dance and result, ultimately, in genuine expression. Dance may be done with the body, but it is only when it embodies the spirit and heart that it becomes beautiful. This is what I keep at the back of my mind when thinking about how to convey a dance to the audience.

Lee Go-woon: Hye-rim believes that it is very important for the dancer to share his or her personal story. Each time we start a project, she has the dancers write throughout the practices and rehearsals. She wants our lives to be connected to whatever we are working on, which leads to dancers voluntarily giving their all. One of our defining traits that we are especially proud of is that each motion the dancers make is embedded with their personal stories: this is so that the audience realizes that there is nothing fake or untrue in any part of our routines.

Jang Hye-rim: We believe that every production is important. That’s the mentality that drives our desire to extend/continue a particular dance. A classic is a classic because, as we all know, its value is recognized by audiences regardless of era. I find myself rooting for each production, from the bottom of my heart—mostly because I feel, on a daily basis, the incredible energy, time, and capital that is invested in each one. I think it is this passion for our productions that leads us to make series of them. Another reason for turning one-time performances into series is our belief that, in response to the changing nature of our time and our thoughts, a dance performance must reflect its time.

Jang Hye-rim: “Abyss,” “Burnt Offering,” and “GAL-GAL,” which we invited German dancer/choreographer Patricia Carolin Mai to design for us. All three are more about the movements that our bodies instinctively remember than traditional Korean culture. I do believe, though, that audiences catch the elements of Korean culture that these dances express without anyone having intentionally planted them there.

Jang Hye-rim: Before COVID-19, we had exchanges with various artists that often led to continued discussion of a particular topic: that’s how our creations evolve and mature. As much as I would like to continue this multi-party, collaborative format, our present circumstances require us to devise different methods for interacting. These days, we use videos a lot. I am studying how to make films in a way that best expresses our dance language. I hope that, if we continue making these kinds of efforts, we will find new ways of communicating with others.

Lee Go-woon: I really want to meet our audience members, which is something we are currently seeking to achieve through our diverse video endeavors. I hope our videos can pave roads for us to debut internationally on a broader level.

Production Details

〈Silence〉
〈Burnt offering〉
〈Burnt offering Ver.2〉
〈Abyss〉
〈Breathing Swing〉
〈GAL-GAL〉

- 2021 SESC Dance Biennale, Brazil
- 2020 OPEN LOOK Int’l Dance Festival, Russia
- 2019 Guest Choreography for Skånes Dansteater, Sweden
- 2019 OperaEstate Festival Veneto, Italy

99ArtCompany
99artcompany