Trust Dance Theatre
"Sabaidee!" "Bayartai!" This year as well, greetings in strange languages were heard in Trust Dance Theatre's practice room. Trust Dance Theatre, selected as CPI program host for the second consecutive year since 2017, invited four dancers from Mongolia and Laos, respectively. One day in July, when CPI participants first visited the practice room, excitement and tension were evident on their faces, though they are experienced professional dancers.
Purevjav Sandag-Ochir from Mongolia majored in traditional dance, but leads a hip-hop dance crew with enthusiastic about hip-hop and street dance. He was excited about experiencing Korean dance culture with active b-boy culture. Kaory Lee from Laos, the youngest CPI participants in the theatre, was curious about contemporary dance that she had not experienced in her country. The companionship between CPI participants and Trust Dance Theatre began from this day on.
Contemporary dance classes
For the last five months, CPI participants participated in all classes of Trust Dance Theatre and received a contemporary dance training every weekday except Tuesday and Thursday morning when they took Korean classes. As they have studied traditional dance for a long time, they had difficulties in learning contemporary dance concepts which is new to them, including the "contact" in which they touched other dancers’ bodies to create movements and the "improvisation" in which they freely danced to music. However, as time passed, they combined the features of traditional dance such as strength and power of Mongolian dance as well as softness and flexibility of Laos dance with contemporary dance. This combination created new movements. In addition, Purevjav Sandag-Ochir and Baasanjav Khaliun from Mongolia held a Mongolian dance workshop, inviting members of Trust Dance Theatre to experience traditional Mongolian dance.
Showcase
At the end of November, CPI participants staged their showcase "STEP Project" at the Cheonjangsan Uhwa Theater. CPI participants experienced the whole process of dance performance production from selection of the performance concept, choreography, stage production, profile photograph shooting and promotional material creation. At the initial stage, the production process proceeded with difficulty as they were tied up to the styles of their own countries’ traditional dances. However, visiting various dance events and performances such as Performing Arts Market in Seoul, performance of Korea National Contemporary Dance Company and Andong International Mask Dance Festival, they got ideas for their works and enhanced their choreography through constant discussion and practice with members of Trust Dance Theatre. Through this process, four CPI participants finally created solo dance works titled "Man", "Woman", "Nature" and "Wolf", respectively, along with a group work titled "Mind", on the main theme of "Nature", and unveiled them at the showcase "STEP Project".
Cultural experience
During the CPI program, members of Trust Dance Theatre and CPI participants spent most of time together and learned about each other's cultures. At the end of the morning classes, all had lunch together with members who cooked rice at the practice room and shared the side dishes that they brought from their home. They talked about cultures of each country that they could not learn during dance classes. During the Chuseok holidays, they gathered together at house of the director of Trust Dance Theatre, where they enjoyed traditional Korean culture including Chuseok foods and folk games such as yunnori. In addition, they visited Yeongwol, Namsan Mountain, Gyeongbokgung Palace, and Gangneung to explore Korean culture and appreciate the beautiful sceneries of Korea. In particular, Purevjav Sandag-Ochir and Baasanjav Khaliun, who had never seen sea since Mongolia is an inland country, were delighted to see the clear autumn sea of Gangneung.
For the last five months, four CPI participants from Mongolia and Laos have become true cultural partners of Trust Dance Theatre members who feel so close to them as neighbors, not only dancers from foreign countries. This may be due to so many stories, dance movements, and moments of exchanging each other’s cultures among them. These four CPI participants will also be partners of another else in Mongolia and Laos in learning Korean culture. Until we meet again, good-bye, our CPI participants!
