A Festival of Korean Dance

Last Updated on May 7, 2026

Looking Ahead to a Showcase of Korean Dance at The Place

The South Korean dance scene is lively, varied and very much sui generis, and over the past nine years, London has been able to sample a small share of what it has to offer, courtesy of the Festival of Korean Dance. 

As in previous years, so this year, too, The Place is preparing to host the London leg of the Festival of Korean Dance, which will tour the UK from 13 to 30 May.

Three diverse companies will present their work, culminating with the largest and more established Korean National Contemporary Dance Company.  The other two are 99 Art Company on a return visit, and newcomer Ryu and Friends.

Combining ancestral cultural references with cutting-edge contemporary movement and a sense of humour that doesn’t always travel well, Korean dance is interesting, if occasionally discombobulating, and never fails to provide glimpses of a very foreign, but fascinating, culture.

The London part of the Festival opens at The Place on 13 May with a performance by 99 Art Company, presenting a double bill of works new to the UK, Abyss & Ekah, both exploring the power of art to connect and drive change.

Abyss explores the concept of ‘han’, a deep, unspoken sense of sorrow and resilience.  This is essentially a slow, meditative work, where the dancers invite the audience to feel a wide range of emotions.  Food for thought, too, in the second piece of the programme, Ekah, a self-choreographed piece where Hye-rim Jang engages in dialogue with a male pianist to contemplate the effects of grief.

Newcomers Ryu and Friends come to The Place on 15 May with Gravity, a piece about the relationships between all matter, performed by an 11-strong cast.

Heavy on concept, experimental choreographer Jang-hyun Ryu’s Gravity is billed as staging a universe in motion, where energy mutates and transforms, configured through dynamic interactions, floating orbs and otherworldly substances.   It will be a demanding watch, but it is likely to offer images that will remain engraved in the memory for a long time

Finally, it will be the turn of festival favourites Korean National Contemporary Dance Company (KNCDC), with a Voyage & Hakkō, a double bill running over two dates – 29 & 30 May.

Of the two pieces on offer, Voyage sounds the most complex.

Choreographed by Olivier Award nominee Young-doo Jung, Gravity has a solitary spacecraft moving towards a singular point. It  is inspired by  the Voyager deep-space probes launched in 1977, and promises to lead the audience towards an uncharted world beyond their experience.  It’s danced to a sound score that draws some of its sounds from the ‘golden record”, which NASA sent into space to educate potential aliens about the life and culture of earthlings, and adds rock ’n roll, classical music and Korean traditional rhythms.

By contrast, Ryu Suzuki’s Hakkō sounds like a slower, more repetitive piece.

Inspired by the repetitive actions of the traditional Japanese cup-and-ball toy ‘kendama’, Hakkō explores the gradual transformation of body and mind through focused iterations of the simplest movements.   The piece draws its intense energy from club culture and electronic music.

Both performances by 99 Art Company and Ryu and Friends, as well as the first night show by NKCDC,  will be followed by Post Show Talks, which may prove useful in clarifying some of the most complex points of the works we’ve just seen.

A Festival of Korean Dance is at The Place, London, and on UK tour, 13 – 30 May

The Place
17 Duke’s Road
London WC1H 9PY

Check out our London Dance Previews