¡ã Director Hong Sun-mi |
Director Hong Sun-mi of Dance Theater Nu has searched and tried new methods of modern dance started from the American dancer Isadora Duncan, who broke the norm of classical movement of the body. Hong, on the other hand, has challenged to combine modern dance with the play as well as with performance.
She is serving as an adjunct professor of Sport for All and as a special professor of Performing Arts Contents at Sahmyook University. She graduated from Seoul Arts High School and majored in dance at Ewha Woman’s University. She carried on her study at a master’s level and obtained a doctoral degree at Sejong University; she engaged in the fields of art director, professor, choreographer and promoter thereafter.
She is credited for emphasizing the essence of body movements which deliver the erupting energy and the beat to the audience. These movements are well melted into her unique style of works that combined the elements of modern dance and the play.
She once introduced a performance ‘Dancheong Dancing’ in collaboration with the Hansung University fashion design professor Lee Ki-hyang in 2012; Dancheong is traditional Korean colorings on wooden materials. This new crossover performance was a great success and it was invited to a stage in New York by the UN.
She also adapted the Eugene O’Neill’s ‘Desire Under the Elms’ into her creative performance ‘Afterimage of Her’ with newly created characters. But the most explosive response from the audience was the recent creative play ‘Mother & Jar’: Two actors (one was her daughter) in the play untangles a touching story of a family and it has drawn a sea of tears and standing ovation. The play was staged in Russia and Morocco.
With these outstanding achievements, Dance Theater Nu and Russia East Asia Cultural Fund won a project supported directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin: the MOU was signed last August and Hong and her team Oh Sun-young, Yoo Sung-hee, Ahn Ki-hyun, Kim Jong-shin and Parkgyun flew to Russia to lay a foundation. Meanwhile, she has served as a master class professor of Moscow International Play Festival, of Egypt International Play Festival, and a judge of Japan SAI Dance Festival.
As a professor at Sahmyook University, she has been pouring her passion in promoting Korean performing arts. Opening the department of Performing Arts Contents is a good example and she said that a creative play ‘Give Soy Sauce’ is to be presented by students on 12 December this year with which she feels very proud.
“The different of Performing Arts Contents Department of Sahmyook University is that it not only teach creating contents but how to bring up ideas and plan and how to communicate with the audience. For this reason, you can see students with different majors such as sports, management, arts contents, architecture, theology and computer in the classes. It is very important for universities to equip students with imagination, creativity, self-directed learning and problem solving. Sahmyook University Performing Arts Contents is a perfect department, in this respect, to make that happen” says Hong.
In recognition of her contribution to the field, Hong was listed in the Korea New Intellectuals.
À̽ÂÈ£ ±âÀÚ tauton@naver.com