1. AHN AE-SOON

Ahn Ae-Soon is a choreographer who has built her own dancing world by harmonizing Korean dance movement and its traditional beauty with modern dance. She has been rated as a choreographer who displays Korean dances most effectively and staged more than 70 domestic performances and 30 overseas performances over the last 20 years. She is also registered as one of Korean leading dancers on ‘The Oxford Dictionary of Dance’ and ‘International Dictionary of Modern Dance’.

She has also arranged dances with Montreal Dance in Canada and Jeune Ballet de France, and has been acclaimed overseas and invited to the Bagnolet Dance Competition, Singapore Arts Festival, The Cervantino Art Festival in Mexico and Dance Biennale Tokyo.

AWARD

The Best Arts Award of the Year of 2004
The Dance Art Award of 2000
The Korean Dance Critic’s Award Dance Criticism of 1999
Prize Award Recontres Choreographiques Internationales de Bagnolet 1998
First prize of the first Choreographic Competition 1994... etc.

2. AHN AE-SOON DANCE COMPANY

A-Soon Dance Company is one of the leading modern dancing organizations that has built its own characteristics with unique choreography and experience that combines Korean traditional culture and modern dance. It finds something to tell to Korean modern society through the impromptu nature, humor and Korean characteristics of Korean traditional play, and focuses on communicating with spectators living in this era.

It started as a pickup group and has grown into a dance troupe composed of prominent members. In the process, it won the best dancer prize of the Bagnolet Dance Competition, France (1994. Park So-jung), the grand prize of Paris International Dance Competition (2000, An Young-jun) and was awarded in Yokohama Dance Collection (2006, Kim Myeung-shin, received France Embassy Award in Japan). All the members showed their talents and qualifications as a choreographer, and received favorable comments, expanding their stage.

The troupe is now seeking to find and nurture the next-generation choreographers by staging individual choreographic works in ‘Small Theater’.

MAJOR WORKS

The White Noise(2007), The Moment(2006), Seven+1(2005), Just-feedback(2005), Right of Happiness(2003), Circle-After the Other(2003), A-ii-go(2002), Gut-Play(2001), The Memory of Play(2000), On Time(1999), The 11th Shadow(1998), Empty Space(1994) etc.

REERTORIES

CIRCLE - AFTER THE OTHERS

Duration: 40 minutes

SYNOPSIS

The Choreographer seeks to talk about the direction of our culture through this work. With the influx of foreign culture, our culture’s quality rapidly changed and lost direction, going abnormally.

The choreographer describes our current culture through the language of dance. This is why the work reflects our distorted culture, though it is based on Korean characteristic music and movement.

AWARS

Jan. 2004 The Best Arts Award of the Year

HISTORY

Aug. 2007 Gwangju International Performing Art Festival, Gwangju Art Center
Sep. 2005 Asia-Pacific Week in Berlin 2005, House of World Culture, Berlin, Germany
Dec. 2004 Selected by the National Association of Culture and Arts Center,
Jincheon HwarangGwan, Jincheon, Korea
Nov. 2004 Selected by the National Association of Culture and Arts Center,
Uijeongbu Arts Center, Uijeongbu, Korea
Oct. 2004 Seoul Performing Arts Festival 2004. Universal Arts Center, Seoul
Oct. 2004 Invited by the Ministry of Culture of Colombia.
Auditorio Leon de Greiff, Bogota, Colombia
Oct. 2004 Cervantino Festival 2004. Teatro Principal, Guanajuato, Mexico
Jun. 2004 Singapore Arts Festival 2004. Victoria Theatre, Singapore
Nov. 2003 ‘In Seoul! Out of Berlin’. Towol Theater, Seoul Art Center

THE 11ST SHADOW



Duration : 35 minutes
SYNOPSIS

It tried to combine modern dance and ‘Manseokjung play’, a traditional shadow play. It shows the daily anguish of people living in modern society and traditional thoughts existing in the current society.

The shadow of a man who appeared after creation of the universe. The 11th Shadow that pursues truth in a state of limitless eternity is just a small and comic existence. The shadow tries to go beyond where it is by pushing its incompletion to an extreme.

* Manseokjung play
Manseokjung play is traditional play of Goryeo Dynasty. It is the silent puppet show staged in the ground of a Buddhist temple when lotus lantern festival takes place before and after Buddhist’s birthday to preach doctrines of Buddhism to the public.
* Ten symbols of longevity
‘Ten symbols of longevity’ are a group of ten symbols of perennial youth and long life. The symbols are the sun, mountain, water, stone, cloud, pine tree, herb of eternal youth, tortoise, crane and deer. In some cases, some kinds of creatures are excluded or others are included.

AWARD
1998 Recontres Choreographiques Internacionales de Bagnolet

HISTORY

Sep. 2005 Asia-Pacific Week in Berlin 2005. House of World Culture, Berlin, Germany
Dec. 2004 Selected by the National Association of Culture and Arts Center,
Jincheon HwarangGwan, Jincheon, Korea
Nov. 2004 Selected by the National Association of Culture and Arts Center,
Uijeongbu Arts Center, Uijeongbu, Korea
Oct. 2004 Seoul Performing Arts Festival 2004. Universal Arts Center, Seoul
Oct. 2004 Invited by the Ministry of Culture of Colombia.
Auditorio Leon de Greiff, Bogota, Colombia
Oct. 2004 Cervantino Festival 2004. Teatro Principal, Guanajuato, Mexico
Jun. 2004 Singapore Arts Festival 2004. Victoria Theatre, Singapore
Dec. 1999 Selected by The Korean Culture & Arts Foundation.
DongSoong Art Center, Seoul
Nov. 1999 USA tour.
Jefferson performing Art Center, Neworleans Voll Theatre, Dayton, Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia Kennedy Center Terraces Theatre, Washington
Jul. 1999 The 10 Internationales Tanzprojekt Bielefeld. Bonn, Bielafeld, Hagen, Germany
Jun. 1998 Recontres Choreographiques Internationales de Bagnolet 1998.
Seine Saint-Denis Theater, France
Feb. 1998 Preview of Recontres Choreographiques Internationales de Bagnolet.
Main Hall of FCAF Arts Theater, Seoul