It's a Wrap!


The 2012 DanceMotion USA season came to a close in a big way-with a beautiful, energetic, moving collaborative performance by Trey McIntyre Project and Korea National Contemporary Dance Company at BAM.  The evening featured repertory works by the companies' respective artistic directors Trey McIntyre and Sungyop Hong, as well as a collaboration between dancers from the two companies, choreographed by Trey McIntyre in Boise.

Trey McIntyre premiered his new piece, The Unkindness of Ravens,
in which TMP dancers collaborate with So Jin Lee, Anlee Chang and Taehee Kim of KNCDC

Yoonhee Lee and KNCDC perform "Mosaic"

KNCDC performs "Can't it really be helped?" an excerpt from their production Hoshitamtam

Performance photos courtesy of Stephanie Berger/BAM

Celebrating an incredible year 
of cultural diplomacy

Dancers, staff from BAM and the State Department, and friends of the program enjoyed a lively opening night reception to celebrate what this unique program has achieved in the last year.  

(And by lively, we mean lots of hand gestures, broken Korean-English translations, laughter, and of course, the obligatory Gangnam Flash Mob.  Check out all the photos on our Facebook page)

Sungyop Hong & Translator Ben Chon
(Photo: E Frossard)

TMP's Rachel and Ryan with KNCDC's Taehee
(Photo: E Frossard)

Miss the performance or want to see it again?

We streamed the performance live, a first for DanceMotion USA and for BAM (!), to a closed audience in Korea and publicly on Livestream.  Then, we also streamed the talkback, which featured members of both companies and took questions from audiences in Brooklyn and in Seoul.  You can watch all of it here:  DanceMotion USA on Livestream

Read what they're saying about

this unique partnership built through dance:

Press on TMP and KNCDC at the Morrison Center, Boise:

• Idaho Statesman: Korea Comes to Boise
• KTVB: Trey McIntyre Project Building Friendship Through Dance
• Boise Weekly Performance Preview
• Boise Weekly Review: Trey McIntyre Project's Fall Show Showcases Fertile Imagination

Press on TMP and KNCDC at BAM, Brooklyn:

• New York Times Preview: Pacific Crossings and Other Choreography
• New York Times Review: Fanciful Theatricality Proves a Shared Language
• DanceTabs Review

So Jin of KNCDC and Chanel of TMP

TMP and KNCDC in the windows of the BAM Hillman Studio

KNCDC in New York City!

Thank you everyone for an amazing year.

Get ready for more in 2013!

Fun at the Opening Night Reception

After an incredible opening at BAM, things just wouldn't have been right without a collaborative, impromptu Gangnam performance at the reception!

Read about our program's continuing relationship with the Gangnam dance here in Dance Spirit Magazine.

Read about us on the BAM Blog

Our Project Coordinator flew to Idaho last week to help make our US residency trailer and wrote all about her visit for BAM.  Give it a read here!

A Master Class, 7000 Miles Apart

DanceMotion USA got to help BAM Education test out its new equipment in our first ever distance learning event.

The event brought together middle-and-high school students from the Korean Traditional Music and Dance Institute (KTMDI) in New York City and middle-and-high school students of renowned Korean dance master Yi-Jo Lim in Seoul, Korea.

First the students from KTMDI performed drum dances for Master Lim and the Korean audience.
They may be young, but these Brooklyn dancers amazed the audience and received praise from Lim in Korea.

JindoBukchum, Jindo Drum Dance, KTMDI in Brooklyn

Janggochum, Janggo Solo Dance

Then, the KTMDI students sat down to watch as Master Lim and his students performed at Seoul Institute for the Arts  for the group in Brooklyn.

Watching HanRyangMu, the Noblemen's Dance


Not only did the class offer the Korean-American students at KTMDI a unique opportunity to learn from one of the most important figures in Korean dance, it also gave New York-based dancer (and KTMDI President) Yoon Sook Park the chance to reconnect with her teacher, Master Lim. 

Master Teacher Lim, Yi-Jo (in orange) teaches on screen

KTMDI students learn footwork up close...

...and put it together with arm movements. 



The evening concluded with the two groups posing for final portraits together, 7000 miles apart.

Watch the video of our distance learning event here.

You can also catch our next distance learning event live this Friday, when our performances at BAM are streamed to Seoul and Idaho, and all three audiences can ask questions at our post-show discussion.  

The Boise Grand Finale

It's SHOW TIME.

This past Saturday, An Lee, Taehee and So Jin performed with Trey McIntyre Project in TMP's annual fall show at the Morrison Center for the Performing Arts in Boise, Idaho, where they premiered Trey's new piece The Unkindness of Ravens together. This new work was inspired by both Trey's travel in Korea with DanceMotion USA this past spring, and his collaboration with Korea National Contemporary Dance Company members at home in Idaho. 

All photos courtesy TMP's Facebook Page:

People head to their seats

Dancers greet fans and sign posters after the matinee

Chanel of Trey McIntyre Project signs posters for her "biggest-smallest" fans 

Now, on to New York!  Trey McIntyre Project and KNCDC will perform The Unkindness of Ravens, along with pieces from each individual company, at BAM this week in Brooklyn.

 

Thank you to everyone in Boise - from the TMP staff to the Mayor's office to the friendly neighbors in the greater Idaho community - the success of this residency was a real testament to your kindness.
We here at DanceMotion USA couldn't thank you enough.  See you in Brooklyn - or maybe, Korea?



Teaching Korean Dance to TMP

After two weeks of An Lee, Taehee and So Jin intensively studying Trey McIntyre’s choreography, it was time for the Trey McIntyre Project dancers to learn some traditional Korean dance.

 An Lee and Taehee perform for the company

First, Anlee and Taehee performed what they remembered from their childhood.  Then, So Jin, who is formally trained in traditional dance, took the lead to teach both the Trey McIntyre Project dancers and staff. They started with a simple step, focused on walking and turning with their heels, which the dancers could use to travel across the studio.

So Jin!

Their translator Ben Chon quickly jumped into double-duty, playing the drum for the dancers while translating So Jin’s instructions.

As the dancers started to understand how to concentrate their movements in Korean traditional dance style, how to move their feet and angle their shoulders, they started to understand something else, too. Ben noted that as Americans, the Trey McIntyre Project dancers are open and expressive, in both their dancing and in their lives. "Americans have no problem," he said, "you can talk about anything on talk shows."
 

But in Korean dance, Ben explained, "you shut your mouth, and you close your ears so you express [emotion] very subtly. Same with affection and love, too, you don’t say ‘I love you’...subtly you find a way to express yourself, and that’s why it was so hard for them to make eye contact with you." 

TMP now understood why maintaining eye contact in their other rehearsals had been so counter intuitive for their new collaborators.  So Jin grinned when she saw them equally uncomfortable in the Korean gestures.  "See," she said giggling, "Now it's your turn!"