■ Asia Focus
「Asia Focus」 is a platform that presents the works of Asian artists, commissioned or co-produced by MMCA together with international partners. This year, it will present five works created by artists from Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and China. The event will be held from September 28 to October 3 in Multi-Project Hall, Gallery 6, and Gallery 7 located at MMCA Seoul.
Unfold the page to find the schedule and program ↓
■ Performance Schedule
■ Program
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Nam Hwayeon 「Orbital Studies」
A long time has passed since Halley’s comet last appeared on earth in 1986. The next time it will return, 2061, remains in a distant future. Measuring 15km in diameter and weighing 2.2×1014kg, this gigantic comet is still hovering somewhere in the dark universe, while we stand here.
「Orbital Studies」 is an exploration on Halley(1P/Halley), the first shortperiod comet to be named by humans. The work is also a study on desire and incomprehensibility, order and chaos, and movement and time. What kind of movements will we be able to sense amidst the time created in 「Orbital Studies」? In other words, what kind of time will we be able to sense amidst the movements created in 「Orbital Studies」? |
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Royce Ng 「Queen Zomia」
Royce Ng’s ‘Opium Museum Trilogy’ takes opium as a leitmotif to examine the fundamental political and economic system of the modern Asian state.
Introduced in Asia Focus 2017, the first chapter 「Ghost of Showa」 narrated the creation of the modern Asian state; the second chapter 「Queen Zomia」 will be about those who tried to escape from it. The story departs from a character with multiple identities: Olive Yang. She was both a leader of the anarchist provinces in the so-called region of Zomia and an opium warlord controlling its production and distribution across the region.
The stage will weave a monolithic golden pyramid with spectral, virtually animated holograms, exploring the enigmatic history of Southeast Asia, entangled with different nationalities and identities. |
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Ho Tzu Nyen 「The Mysterious Lai Teck」
「The Mysterious Lai Teck」 centres around the man known as Lai Teck, the leader of the Malayan Communist Party from 1939 to 1947. He was revealed to be a triple agent who worked with the French, British and Japanese secret police. He was said to have been killed in 1947.
What little we know about Lai Teck today comes from other agents, spies and traitors, whose stories are edited, selected and renarrated by the Police, before passing into histories. From this mesh of fact and fiction emerges a story full of ghosts and gaps, told by a presence behind a veil of projections and theatrical drapes.
What begins as autobiography gradually proliferates into a polylogue about the ruthlessness of becoming, of being untimely, of crossing lines: the lines between the inside and the outside, fiction and espionage, agency and treachery, and a snapshot of the shifting face of Southeast Asia in the Age of Treason. |
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Meiro Koizumi 「Sacrifice」
In his compelling and challenging body of work, such as 「Portrait of a Young Samurai」, Meiro Koizumi examines a range of complex issues: power dynamics on scales both familiar and national; the tension between staged and authentic emotion; and the conflict between duty and desire. Koizumi has been producing various film works, but this time he presents his first performing arts piece.
「Sacrifice」 unfolds through the first person perspective of an Iraqi youth who experienced the war. The journey begins from his ordinary life and then leads into a confessional story revealing his inner turmoil. Throughout the work, by creating the experience of complete absorption in a person, Koizumi touches on the ideas of intersubjectivity, collective memories, or ‘the otherness’ within oneself.
Can a tragedy be narrated from a first person perspective? How far can we sympathize in the pain and suffering of others? Where is the limit? Can an artistic medium empower us to break such limit?
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Dai Chenlian 「Big Nothing」
Dai Chenlian’s theatre project 「Big Nothing」 will create a world where reality and dreams, ghost stories and personal memories interlock through a live puppet theatre. The loose story-line departs from daily scenes from his childhood and drifts into ghost stories from Youyang Zazu.
Dai Chenlian has read Lu Xun’s memoir fondly. Lu Xun, the celebrated founding father of modern Chinese literature, fantasizes about a snake spirit turning into a beautiful woman at night in his backyard in his youth. Childhood fantasies are awakened through daily objects: a water kettle, a shoe repairing machine, and an old desk.
The coinciding of reality and unreality creates a hyperreality where common objects appear strangely unfamiliar, innocent scenes become uncannily violent, and where the illogical and nonsensical gain new senses. |
※Reservation is required for all performances. Please send your reservation request to: performingart@mmca.go.kr
■ MMCA Performing Arts
「MMCA Performing Arts」 recognizes the ever-expanding spectrum of visual art and aims to capture its dynamics by creating a new arena in the museum. The program focuses on artists who have a critical viewpoint on today, as well as their own artistic language to express it. The program encompasses any pertinent forms that can best embody the perspective of the artist, stretching from performance, dance, theater, sound art, video, or a form that transgresses all boundaries.
「MMCA Performing Arts」 presents international performing arts projects throughout the year. The program connects with the international performing arts scene and participates in the mapping of its topography. The focus is especially on Asia. New creations of Asian artists produced by MMCA will be presented at a platform called 「Asia Focus」, held in fall every year. The program aims to propel the circulation of Asian productions and form surrounding discourses.
