Festival of diversity

‘Seoul International Improvisation Dance Festival’ is the only improvisation dance festival held in Korea,
which invites professional dancers from overseas.
This year, various improvisation artist groups including ‘Magpie Project’, ‘Yuko Kaseki’ who won the Isadora Duncan Prize, ‘Celine Bacque’ artistic director of ET Aussi Dance Company,
and ‘Maria Mavridou’ choreographer from the Netherlands participated in the festival.

The festival has 12 year history and has been held in Seoul and Busan only. It is, however, going to be held in Fukuoka (April 19-21) and Tokyo (April 23-25) from this year.
According to the host, “Establishment of improvisation network between Korea and Japan has been drawing attention from the dancing world because it is the first trial of connecting international network. And the network will be expanded to Europe, USA, and other Asian countries in the future.” During the festival, improvisation dance classes for professional dancers, adults, and children were prepared in addition to dance performances.
Prior to the festival, 27 workshop programs including a children improvisation class given on April 7 and a class for specialized employees given on the 8th were offered.

Pleasure of unpredictable improvisation

An improvisation dance literally means a performance which shows improvisatory gesture of dancers.
The first theatre performance in Korea took place in 2002, but it had already been a genre of a performance in Europe at that time. Breaking away from standardized performance, dancers followed their natural instinct in harmony with different music to exhibit the fresh world of dance.

satisfied with their new cultural experience through the creative performance which could not be found in anywhere else.
The festival was so unpredictable that the audience felt unfamiliar in the beginning but gradually enjoyed new cultural experience.