ENCORE, a project led by artist Yuni Hong Charpe, is based on research into discourses and dances around Choi Seung-Hee (1911-1969), a dancer born in the Japanese-occupied Korean peninsula. In collaboration with Hirano Akihito, a translator-interpreter specializing in living art, the performance will be composed of two parallel axes. The first axis is a historical account by Choi drawn from the archives, while the second is made up of Yuni’s travel memories, which retrace the dancer’s journey.

Choi Seung-hee (from her Japanese name Sai Shoki) was born in Seoul under Japanese occupation. After dancing in Korea and Japan, as well as in Europe and the USA, she moved to North Korea to set up a dance center. Her dances are said to be the origin of the Korean dances danced today by the Korean diaspora community in Japan (known as Zainichi*). At the time, Choi’s dance was received differently in Europe, Japan and Korea. Some Japanese imperialists presented his dances as “one of the colonial cultural symbols of the Japanese Empire”, while some Koreans saw them as “proud symbols of Korean culture”. In Europe, where the distinction between Japan and Korea was blurred at the time, her dance was received as “Oriental beauty”. In recent years, Choi has been described as the “Isadora Duncan of the Orient “**.

Inspired by a lecture Choi gave at the Imperial Theater of Japan in 1942, the piece takes the form of a reading-performance. During the reading, Yuni Hong Charpe and Akihito Hirano project on screen images taken during their research on Choi, and dance videos shot with Zainichi-Korean dancer Miyu Yun. The dances and discourses on Choi will be repeated in various forms, interweaving different languages, images and movements.

Concept, direction and performance - Yuni Hong Charpe / Dramaturgy, translation and performance - Akihito Hirano / With - Miyu Yun (Korean dancer), Natsuka Kusano (director), Kanie Naha (poet) / Camera - Natsumi Aoyagi, Yukiko Iioka, Chiku Komiya, Natsuka Kusano / Photo: Yuni Hong Charpe, Akihito Hirano, Maki Hashimoto, Tago-chan / Graphics - Tezzo Suzuki / Acknowledgements - Cyril Charpentier, Kazumi Endo, Maki Hashimoto, Hwajin Lee, Madeno, Nobutaka Nakahara, Kazuya Nakayama, Tomoko Sato, Takahiro Ueno

* Descendants of Koreans who immigrated to Japan during the Japanese occupation of Korea.

** Tribute to Choi Seung-Hee, the Isadora Duncan of the East (Show from 22 to 29.11.2015)

PRACTICAL INFO
{Sunday, September 18, 2022 from 11am to 6pm at the Maison de la Francophonie (Cité internationale universitaire de Paris) / Film screenings every hour}

PARTNERS
{With the support of the Direction régionale des Affaires culturelles d'Île-de-France - Ministère de la Culture} {Kinosaki International Arts Center (Toyooka City)} {Institute of Contemporary Arts Kyoto} {Kyoto Performing Arts Center: Joint Usage/Research Center} {RAM Association (Graduate School of Film and New Media: Tokyo University of the Arts)} {Kawamura Arts and Cultural Foundation} {Arts Aid KYOTO}

ASSOCIATED LINKS
{avec la participation du DICRéAM}