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Performance Info

CHANG Hyun Joon (Director, Choreographer)

: A study of bodies attuned for a better body imitation

You studied sculpture in high school and formative art(installation) at university. This makes me wonder how you became interested in performance.

I felt fine art had its limitations in many ways. More specifically, I was unable to figure out what I could do more as a ‘sculptor.’ Traditionally, sculpture takes the body as the main subject of study. But since I was interested in exploring the human being, it was difficult for me to approach it solely as a material or image. At school, the attention was only focused on conceptual aspects, how to give meaning to an image or material, whereas I thought it was my action and intention that should have more importance. That’s why I turned away from fine art and paid attention to the ideas of movement and time. This was the starting point.

How did you get started with your work that followed afterwards? As far as I know you were a dancer first, and then began to study choreography properly.

During the Spring Wave Festival in 2007, the forerunner of Festival Bo:m, I took part in works by Tino Sehgal and HONG Sung Min. Actually, my first stage experience was by means of installation art. I barely had a chance to take a role on stage probably because I was not trained as a performer. In a way, I felt like I was not considered good enough to be on stage. That’s how I entered the graduate school of dance at Korea University of Arts. I wanted to explore the body in depth. Later on, festival director KIM Seong Hee, who came to see my workshop performance, suggested performing at her festival, which then led to Occurrence of Theater in 2012 and andofofand, andandofwith in 2013.

In Occurrence of Theater, the audience was seated on stage, and actors were followed by a camera which showed them entering the theater from outside the building. This was projected live, showing how reality and unreality, stage and audience, as well as the theater’s interior and exterior overlapped.

I once did a traveling performance in Mullae-dong in 2009. But I realized that if the audience is guided through the performance, such a viewing form actually reduces each spectator’s autonomy. Thus, in order to improve this, I made the audience go through the process of confirming their position on their own, beyond being mere spectators, in Occurrence of Theater. That is, I let them perform two roles simultaneously, the role of audience who generates viewing, and that of performer who generates performance. My intention was to trigger the occurrence of individual theatres.

At Festival Bo:m in the following year, you gained recognition with andofofand, andandofwith. I am curious how it’s conceived and what it is about.

On stage, the encounter with audience usually takes about an hour - too short to deliver all the things that were acquired from the process behind the performance. So I started to think about the ways to extend the ‘process’ into performance, and my solution was to choose spontaneously when to show the things we had experienced or used along the process.

As it is based on improvisation, there’s no staged role but just your own character. Three people appear on stage and take their places to form a triangle. The people on stage do not engage in an active way of dancing. Simply, the person behind repeats exactly what the previous person is doing. No time restriction, no rules about the form. Only a ‘better body imitation’ exists. The confusion about the situation fills up the running time, and you become aware of the passing of time through external stimulus, but after all it is structured so that the decision to extend the situation is made voluntarily.

What does ‘better body imitation’ mean?

Dance is a form of art which acquires certain body movements by constant representation-repetition and delivers this intended state of body to the audience. You can say it’s ‘imitation’ and ‘delivery.’ At first, I was dissatisfied with this perspective, but my point of view changed later. ‘Body imitation’ has been a crucial way of communication for the survival of mankind since the primitive times. I thought, what I found absurd was the fact that this imitation was not acted out ‘properly.’ So I felt the need to establish the right approach and attitude of imitation and practice. After all, one can say andofofand, andandofwith was about the performance, display and appreciation of ‘better body imitation.’ In a way, I pushed the idea to the extreme; that in order to imitate better, you need to look closer and be aware of the person with all your five senses.

Many of your works are based on improvisation. What does improvisation mean to you?

There is a notion of performativity in drawing. There is quality of improvisation in movement, too. I think improvisation takes the closest form to life. We face unexpected turns. If a plan goes wrong, another decision is made to handle the situation. Actions that occur when a plan goes wrong, and the succession of other events fueled by those actions – my take is that real improvisation is delivering their extension.

As a choreographer, you consider and position yourself not as coming to the front to lead your members but as creating with them. Are you being conscious of the idea of co-directing?

If you look at the credits closely, you will see there is no indication of choreographer. I have tried to equalize with the notion of directing the piece together. The team is set up with those who accept such a proposal. I always try to keep the agreed elements at the time.

Compared to your previous works, Spectators, which was presented in 2015, gave a stronger impression that your role as director was strengthened. Do you consider this as a turning point in your work?

Previously, I tried not to deviate too much from the framework of improvisation. This was possible because I attempted mostly to simplify my subject or adjust to it to a concept, and thus to express complex circumstances within simple conditions. However, Spectators was a piece that made me realize the improvisation’s inherent limit in expression.

Spectators was a performance which aimed to embody ‘a body bearing witness to disaster’ on stage. Facing a big incident, people become bystanders and spectators, except the ones directly involved. I started this piece with the thought that not only the ones directly involved in the disaster but also its spectators get hurt, and who could console their pain. I didn’t start the work with having the answer already like my previous works, but I was clear on what I wanted to show and why. That intensified the urge of delivering the message as well. A discussion through A breath, which was made in 2016 as part of Doosan Art Lab, intended to be a form of commentary on Spectators.

I am curious about how you conceive and develop your work. What are your principles for creating a work?

Once I get interested in a phenomenon, I try to identify myself with that situation. And from the moment I appear on stage until the moment I exit, I ask myself: What am I to stand here, why am I put under these conditions, and what is it that I try to do that makes me stand here taking into account so many things? I start with this thought and it leads me to the end. I already have many answers to this question. But there is still so much more I do not know. That’s why I strive to do and sense something until the end of the show, and reveal those circumstances to others in order to raise the question of what they can feel.

Why do you try to do performance?

My theme is the body after all. I want to share the senses that I could obtain after experiencing something. Of course, I keep asking myself if body is the appropriate form for the kind of work that takes it as the subject. But my ultimate aim is to ‘ask’ - how other people perceive things differently than I do. After all, my purpose is to use the body to ‘sense’ -and not interpret- life.

Production Details

Director

Reference

E-mailsoniejoon@gmail.com

Program

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