From K-pop to Korean film, South Korean culture is more and more popular.
Weird, wonderful and wow, visually stunning Dragons by choreographer Eun-Me Ahn is here for two nights only.
Dragons is a suite of dances exploring dragons and the playful and important role they have in Korean culture.
The performance is built on a combination of six young guest dancers, who are in digital form, and the five company dancers. It is a riot of visually strange creatures, costumes, costume changes and (mostly) vacuum cleaner tube-like props, with primary coloured lighting, swift lighting changes and disco/pop music.
The music also blends in more traditional sounds and softer sections, composed by Young-Gyu Jang. The dancers are powerful and acrobatic, and there’s a strong sense of fun: everyone is dressed in, mainly, dresses and voluminous skirts. Some sections work better than others, of course, but the energy never stops.
Eun-Me Ahn herself has four decades of experience and is rightly widely acclaimed. When she dances alone in a central solo, everything seems to fall into place—her charisma and dance style are engaging, precise, charismatic and unique.
Eun-Me Ahn has also created the set and costumes, all of which are vibrant and humorous, initially evoking alien creatures. The set is formed of large vacuum cleaner-like tubes on three sides and lit in a multitude of ways by Jin young Jang.
Video and motion designs by Taeseok Lee and Minjeong Lee are present throughout as a vital part of the entire show, with the underwater hologram section being particularly memorable.
Presented by Dance Consortium, you can catch this extraordinary 75-minute, non-stop visual feast with its rave like feel in Newcastle on 15 March then in Inverness, Bradford and Birmingham.