Genre / City	Dance / Seoul
Dates	7 May at 14:00／19:00
Venue	at Shizuoka Arts Theatre
Duration	90 minutes
Seat	Reserved seating
Choreography and artistic direction	AHN Eun-Me
Production	Eun-Me Ahn Company, Doosan Arts Center (DAC)
Coproduction	Festival Paris Quartier d’Eté

Introduction

Good fortune attends a lively dance!
Shizuoka Arts Theatre will be a splendid ballroom for grandmas!!

Take a mix of flowery patterns, stripes and polka dots. Conjure together the modern urban world, Korea’s countryside and folklore. Then add electro, movement and video, youngsters and oldies, and serve it all up on a giant dancefloor. Surely the result is a kind of a magic potion like nothing seen before; one with the power to turn heads and rouse the spirits.

France discovered Korean choreographer AHN Eun-Me, aka “the Pina Bausch from Seoul,” in 2013 through her pop epic “Princesse Bari.”

Then the following year she was invited back by Festival Paris Quartier d’Eté to present “Dancing Grandmothers” at the Théâtre National de la Colline. This time, too, she again wowed her audiences as she turned the prestigious venue into a giant ballroom with this no less crazy show based on the indestructible energy of Korean grandmothers that puts her company’s young dancers in the spotlight of a journey through time and movement that turns into a collective trance.

Director’s profile

AHN Eun-Me
Ah, the famous custard pie that is the confrontation “”between tradition and modernity””… How many creators have struggled to find the way to describe what is finally the lot of every artist : one the one hand to know, understand, integrate what the ancients did; on the other to forgot them, overcome them and hope to find something new. Quite a vast program…
On this level, AHN Eun-Me has found new, unexpected and exciting ways. This first comes from her itinerary, marked as much by the learning and exploration of shamanistic tradition as by the many years spent in New York or a profound friendship with the missed Pina Bausch (who invited her many times in Wuppertal). Korean and cosmopolitan, figure of the avant-garde but also choreographer of the very official 2002 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony in Daegu and presented in the most important international festivals, she knows how to improve the beauties of contrast, mow polka dots, stripes and flower, how to play with the most pop colors before switching to the most solemn austerity, how to play with the most subtle shades of androgyny or une slowness to make trance rhythm burst…

Educated at the school of rigor, precise, demanding and of a all Korean discipline, AHN Eun-Me is also a daredevil performer, ready for all kind of piracies. One have seen her jump from the top of a crane to attack a piano with axe and scissors, rip off herself her fairy dress made of white ties to distribute the pieces to the audience while performing a teddybear dance, bury herself with a clown costumes under a rain of baloons, locked up behind bars in a duet with a chicken, or dressed up as a mushroom… But one would be wrong thinking it is provocation. It is rather the affirmation of a curiosity and a freedom held by work and style pushed to their most unexpected limits.

Cast / Staff

Choregraphy and artistic direction: AHN Eun-Me
Music: JANG Younggyyu
Artistic advisor: CHUN Wooyoung
Costumes & set design: AHN Eun-Me
Lighting design: JANG Jinyoung
Video direction: LEE Taeseok
Images: NAM Jiwoong, KIM Seunghwan, LEE Sangwha, LEE Taeseok
Technical direction: KIM Jimyung

Dancers: AHN Eun-Me, KIM Jeeyeun, KIM Hyekyoung, ROH Yeseul, JUNG Uiyoung, KIM Dokyeong, MOON Yongsik, Siko Setyanto, JO Sunjae, HAN Gaon
IMAGAWA Yoko, KIM Bokhee, KADOTA Eiko, KURITA Motoko, SUZUKI Yutaka, TSUCHIYA Yasuko, HOKAMA Tomoko, MAEDA Nobuko, MOCHIZUKI Takako, YASUMOTO Yoshiko

Technical crew: KIM Jimyung, JANG Jinyoung, LEE Haesung, LEE Sangmin
Production crew: Jean-Marie CHABOT, PARK Soona

Production / Partnership: Eun-Me Ahn Company and Doosan Art Center (DAC).
Coproduction: festival Paris Quartier d’Eté.

<Staff>
Stage manager: HARAIKAWA Yukio
Stage: FURUYA Kazumi, YEH Chiahsing, TAKEISHI Morimasa
Lighting: HIGUCHI Masayuki, HANAWA Yuki
Sound: MAKI Daisuke, OTSUKI Minori
Wardrobe: SATO Rise

Interpretation: KIM Seil
Production: KUGA Haruko, SAKANAKA Toshiki

Technical director: MURAMATSU Atsushi
Lighting manager: HIGUCHI Masayuki
Sound manager: SAWADA Yukino

In collaboration with SHIZUOKA HEAD OFFICE KOREAN RESIDENTS UNION IN JAPAN and Dance Company ”Koi suru Seniors”

Under the auspices of Korean Cultural Center, Korean Embassy in Japan