I visited a film screening at the Belgian Dance Film Festival in Momuro Salon. I’ve always had a keen interest in film festivals. Although I work in the performing arts sector, I get inspiration and influence from images or mise-en-scène that’s shown in various media including film. So, it is always a pleasure to be part of this kind of event. The Belgian Dance Film Festival is hosted and organized by the Seoul Section of the International Dance Council CID-UNESCO and the Embassy of Belgium in the Republic of Korea. It presents seven Belgian dance films. As one of the side events, the festival had a screening of Third Act by Peeping Tom. This film was presented last year at the Seoul International Dance Festival (SIDance), and its main subject is life during old age. My mind is blank when I think about life at an old age. I realized that I have never seriously thought about it in depth. Watching Peeping Tom reminded me of my grandmother in a care home. And it made me think about death. Thinking about life at an old age in the context of this movie’s subject, I started to wonder if I will be capable of making choices on how I want to live my life in my twilight years, just like the seniors who appeared in the film as main cast members and extras. I thought about what human dignity is in the face of looming death, and whether that is something a human can protect on one’s own. Seeing how the film is naturally making connections between the Peeping Tom dancers’ performance on the stage and narrations of the cast was interesting. For example, seeing how the casting was done, how the seniors and senior actors were interacting during the production and how the narrations of each actor sharing their life story overlap with the scenes of the movement script being choreographed made me feel like the senior actors’ lives themselves were a performance. 80 minutes was not enough.

〈Third Act〉2019, Film ⓒPeeping tom Dance Company

Screening as a Festival
For a dance film screening within a dance festival to have meaning on its own, it has to figure out how to differentiate itself from other festivals (dance film festivals or dance film screenings in film festivals). If the focus is on screening, a screening at a festival can perhaps serve the audience as a stepping stone so that they can familiarize themselves with a dance festival and dance as a genre and participate in them. The situation is getting much better nowadays, but I think essentially the audience that a dance performance can attract is much more limited compared to a theater performance. Dancers and the audience cannot meet each other at a screening, but instead it can present the performance to more people. Creating spaces where various types of people can meet naturally and allowing new activities to take place or new flows to continue in those spaces is a very challenging task. In my careful assessment, there will be a limitation to what an individual is able to achieve. Of course, a sense of duty or desire of individuals to come together is needed to create a festival, and that is clearly a part of its nature. However, I wish that a dance festival does not remain to be a festival only for people who work in the dance sector. Some say that dance is much more popularized, but I often feel that it is still very challenging. Venues and big festivals should work in association with each other for more activities. Artists should be involved in those activities and take action. And various festivals should continue to make exchanges. These are all very important.

Momuro Salon and Spaces for Dance
While small scale theater performances find artists and develop artworks, festivals can add space development on top of that. The fact that the screening at Momuro Salon this time provided an environment in which daily life and artwork could be developed at the same time was very positive. Generally speaking, people still think that dance requires a certain type of space. In a very narrow perspective, dance does take place on a stage, so it can be said that this is a limitation of the dance genre. However, in the performing arts scene, all of us have been trying to embrace various types of space for a long time, And the topic of popularization will probably not disappear until the day I die. I hear the word popularization naturally in dance, but it is questionable whether the creators are actually thinking about the method of popularization in detail. I think that diversification of space is just as important as dance creators presenting various forms of work beyond the limits of genre. Therefore, it can be said that the activities of Momuro Salon are having a positive influence on the performing arts scene.

Momuro Salon space ⓒ Momuro Salon

Just like how Momuro Salon and Nouvelle Danse collaborated to hold a side program at the Belgian Dance Film Festival that SIDance organized, I hope there will be more individually run spaces that can participate in the festival. It is quite fun to imagine that the performances and exhibitions that will take place in those spaces could form a context and influence the artists working in the future, just as happened in the Judson Memorial Church. Someone will have to take the initiative, but I thought good archiving would be nice.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I've seen many festivals taking place online instead of in a venue. Quite often I saw big festivals that invite international choreographers transforming into a film festival. It was good to see works in film formats, which I have not seen before. However, big festivals begin around the same time and most festivals transformed into online screenings, so I often missed the screening and did not get to see many of them and that was a shame.

Ji-min Son
With a background in contemporary dance, she has been given many titles including dancer, movement designer (theater), performer (visual art) and teaching artist as she continues her art practice where she is needed.