Details

This is neither drama nor story, but a system itself.

There is no message we aim to deliver but we rather suggest you take what their senses see and feel.

About performance

This piece starts from the idea that civilization has made man decadence. We suspect it started when man-made rules, ethics and taboos caged, hid and regulate the natural and beautiful state of man.

We have redefined the state tamed and hidden by a certain set of rules as ‘decadence.’ It is contrary to the usual meaning of the word when we refer to something degenerated; what is ‘well-polished, modest and ethical’ is refined as ‘decadence’ generated by civilization and the active ‘senses’ are regarded as the only thing not decadent.

For instance, a purely geometric space such as coordinate system is an objective space irrelevant to ‘body,’ not engaged with other things. Such an ‘objective space,’ however, exists only in theory and does not exist in real world – as it is impossible to experience a space without the body.

While showing the newly defined Decadence-system, the piece is at the same time about the surge of the sense of body, life and the present which violate it. Through simple repetitive movements, we search for the possibility of expanding from a state of a certain trance, that is, one that continues without making judgments. This is neither drama nor story, but a system itself. There is no message we aim to deliver but we rather suggest you take what their senses see and feel.

Choreographer’s notes

“’Rather than going ‘for’ or ‘towards’ something, it originates and begins anew from the point of intersection or conflict.”

Body, space, video and music as media complement and expand one another, and all of them unfold in live, reflecting the present-ness of theatre. The form of collaboration I hope is, rather than going ‘for’ or ‘towards’ something, what originates and begins anew from the point of intersection and conflict.

The piece has mainly two scenes. The structure of the first scene shows movement that starts from a dot and returns to it, basing on regular and geometric movement pattern. The controlled and limited movements of performers on the imaginary plane imply the newly defined ‘decadence.’ In the second scene, the movement similarly starts from a dot, but it keeps expanding and slipping into other places once the pattern is complete – performers and technicians start their own ‘play.’

The first scene might be decadence, or the second scene might be that, depending on how you look at it. The two scenes are complementary, and function as each other’s decadence.

Credit

Space / Min-sun Son

Visual / NOVAXP Kwang-eun Seo,

Music / Hye-min Jung (Joreng)

Staff / Jun-hwan Kim. Hye-jin Ryu, Daeun Joo, Hye-young Ju

Cast / Ho-jung Kang, Hwang-ju Do, Hye-jin Shin, Ji-young You

About Company

[Mu:p]

Formed by choreographer Hyeong-jun Cho and architect Min-sun Son, [Mu:p] has been structurally explored movement and its relation to space. They experiment with spaces, choreographies and phenomena that appear from an arrangement of bodies and objects within the context of specific places. Also taking interest in what is sensed beyond the realm of body, they explore the infinity of borders with the theme of ‘what is mine and what is not.’

Starting from Co-ordinated Lobby(2013), they have created Di•a-meter(2015), Five Places(2015), Over the wall(2016), Decadence-system(2017), and Threshold Phenomena(2017). [Mu:p] was part of the project team of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Residency Changdong(2017) and is currently running an alternative space called ’92 Whitewell.’