EYE OF THE HEAVEN / creation 2000

Choreography Kim Maeja, Kang Mee-Ree, Kim Sun-Mee, Choi Ji-Yeon
Performed by ChangMu Dance Company

Created to mark the new millenium, "Eye of the Heaven" is an optimistic story asserting that a single laugh can change the world and that life is sheer delight.

Source : Biennale de la Danse 2000 - programme

Credits

Chorégraphie Kim Maeja, Kang Mee-Ree, Kim Sun-Mee, Choi Ji-Yeon
Musique Byun Soung-Riung, SamulNori-KUng, Kim Jae-Chuel, Kim Soo-Bo, Son In-Koo, Yeom Gui-Kong, Lee Je-Eun, Kim Jin-Ae, Shonosuke Oruka
Decors, scénographie Chung Jin-Youn
Costumes Lim Young-Joo, Lee Young-Hee
Lumières Masayaki Aikawa, Yi Kwang-Seong

Updating: March 2012

Born in 1943 in the province of Gangwon-do, Kim Mae-ja was initiated in traditional Korean dance at the Women’s University of Ewha, where she would hold a chair from 1970 to 1991. She created the ChangMu dance company in 1976 and caused a sensation by showing bare feet, a first in Korea, and is today in the avant-garde of the globalisation of dance with her highly-creative choreographies. After opening the Changmuchumteo in 1985, in 1992 she founded the Changmu artistic institute, a uniquely multi-faceted centre in Korea, as it offers a specific choreographic space approved by the artistic and cultural committee, publishes "the Momm" (the body) Monthly Review, manages the ChangMu dance company and programmes shows throughout the season.

Become the flag-bearer for creative Korean choreography after seeking to revive traditional dance while being inquisitive, Kim Mae-ja systematises the traditional foundations of the discipline with an eye to their progressive globalisation. Her choreographies elicit praise through the experimental dimension that they bring to Korean dance in order to adapt it to new realities, while never ceasing to reference tradition. Capable of representing the most banal situation through corporal expression and more than ever aware of the universal potential of the Korean aesthetic, she has taken the role of innovator by orienting her creation internationally, also ensuring the promotion of national choreography abroad through conferences and by establishing a university programme in the area: actions that have broadly contributed to greater awareness of the specific identity of Korea around the world.   

Source : CCN Roubaix