In October 2010, with no predefined itinerary, swept along by the encounters and roads of Chungcheong, Jeolla, Gyeongsang, and Gangwon provinces, Eun-Me Ahn asked elderly women, for the most part peasants, to dance for her, spontaneously. Some of these grandmothers were 60, others 90. They all looked happy when they danced. They were happy to still be able to dance, and happy that someone had asked them to do so. Their dances were so natural and lively that they drew into their movement the young professional dancers from my troupe. Each of their gestures reflected the harshness of their living conditions. It was as if we were looking at an extract from a documentary speaking both of the past and the ground. The wrinkled bodies of these grandmothers were like a book in which had been recorded lives lived over the past century. Each of their dances represented an era, deployed on a harmonious rhythm in a brief fraction of time. Each time we met one of these women, we found ourselves looking at the History of present-day Korea that was personified in their bodies, as though the latter were a History book of our country, far more concrete than any other account from written or oral tradition.

From these meetings, the images filmed in the provinces, and the reactions of the dancers in the troupe, a spectacle both tender and mind-blowing was born, combining the energies of all to, finally, draw the public into the whirlwind of its energy. A tribute to olden times as much as to the immutable vitality of movement. As Eun-Me Ahn still writes: “For me, movement does not only take place at a given time, but rather represents a kind of fossil called on to be activated at a given time to create, through its different gestures, a whole world of suppleness where the present time is infinitely expanded.”

Source: Lola Gruber, Paris Quartier d’été

Korean globetrotter; avant-garde figure and choreographer of the highly official football World Cup opening ceremony in Deagu in 2002; perfomer at the greatest international festivals: Eun-Me Ahn cultivates beauty of contrast, combines dots, strips and flowers, oscillates from the most acid colour to the most solemn austerity, plays on androgeny's subtlest nuances and experiments with slowness to truly shatter the rhythms of trance. 

Eun-Me Ahn is a performer who is prepared to risk everything and commit artistic piracy. Thus we have seen her throw herself off a crane, attack a piano with scissors and an axe, rip up her own fairy-dress made out of white ties and handing out the tatters to the audience, all while performing the Bear's Dance that is straight out of a fairytale. However, it would be wrong to think of this simply as provocation. This is more about the affimation of a curiosity and freedom engendered by work and style, pushed to their most unexpected limits. 

Eun-Me Ahn began her traditional Korean dance training at the age of twelve. In 1989 she finished her studies at the E-Wha University for Women in Seoul, where she received a degree in both Art and Visual Arts. After graduating, she joined the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts in New York in 1994. 

From 1986 to 1992, Eun-Me Ahn was a member of the Korean Modern Dance Company and the Korean Contemporary Dance Company in Seoul. From 1986 to 1993 she developed her choreography work in Korea. During her time in New York, she continued her work as a choreographer: for five seasons from 1995 to 1999, she achieved great success with several long pieces, which received both public and critical acclaim. Eun-Me Ahn is particularly well recognised for her powerful, moving images. She is also considered the Korean representative for Japanese Butoh dance.

Source: Danse Aujourd'hui

More information

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Born in 1977, Fabien Plasson is a video director specialized in the field of performing arts (dance , music, etc).

During his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (joined in 1995) Fabien discovered video art. He was trained by various video artists (Joel Bartoloméo Pascal Nottoli , Eric Duyckaerts , etc).
He first experimented with the creation of installations and cinematic objects.

From 2001 to 2011, he was in charge of Ginger & Fred video Bar’s programming at La Maison de la Danse in Lyon. He discovered the choreographic field and the importance of this medium in the dissemination, mediation and pedagogical approach to dance alongside Charles Picq, who was a brilliant video director and the director of the video department at that time.

Today, Fabien Plasson is the video director at La Maison de la Danse and in charge of the video section of Numeridanse.tv, an online international  video library, and continues his creative activities, making videos of concerts, performances and also creating video sets for live performances.

Sources: Maison de la Danse ; Fabien Plasson website

More information: fabione.fr