In yesterday's post we looked at the 9th International Festival of Contemporary Dance in Venice, so let's follow the dance thread for another day and focus on a show that will take place tomorrow at the Giorgio Cini Foundation on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice (at 7pm; free admission while seats last).
Entitled "The Bridging Colours – White" and staged by the A+M (Asia Movement) company directed by choreographer Cho Yong Min who has collaborated for several years with Theatre Research Centre (Centro Teatrale di Ricerca di Venezia - CTR) in Venice, in collaboration with the Pyung-In Dance Company and the Nol Eum Pan traditional music ensemble, the performance is a world première of a traditional and contemporary Korean dance based on local shaman rituals and exclusively created for the Cini Foundation.
As you may guess from the title, the performance explores the symbolism of the colour white. This is the first of the five traditional Korean colours - white, black, red, blue and yellow. Korean colour symbolism is indeed based upon the five elements: blue stands for creativity, immortality and hope; white symbolises chastity, truth, innocence and death; red hints at the sun, fire, production, creation, passion and love; black symbolises existence, while yellow stands for light and essence of vitality.
The five colours also correspond to the four points of the compass and the centre (Blue – the East; White – the West; Red – the South; Black – the North; Yellow - the Centre), the five elements of the weather (cold, warmth, wind, dryness and humidity) and the five blessings (longevity, wealth, success, health and luck).
The performance will be divided in two different parts, with dancers first accompanied by traditional musical instruments and performing a choreography aimed at evoking a spirit in search of reconciliation; in the second part they will be concentrating on the spirit, but also on the human senses and space, a theme that is tackled also in the current dialogue between the 9th International Festival of Contemporary Dance and the 14th Venice International Architecture Exhibition.
The performance has got an interesting fashion connection since the costumes, made with recycled materials to have a low environmental impact, were created by fashion brand RE;CODE, based in Seoul, and were entirely made in Korea.
"The Bridging Colours - White" is part of a seminar entitled "Performing Music: a Comparative Approach" (18-19 June, Cini Foundation, Venice), that will look at research experiences in performance practice in the fields of Western art music and the music of the oral tradition.
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