[Herald Interview] ‘Dancing with P’ explores dance’s legacy after dying of Pina Bausch

“Expensive members of Tanztheater Wuppertal, I’m Lee Kyung-sung, a theater director from South Korea.”

The play “Dancing with P” opens with this letter Lee wrote in the summertime of 2021 to the famend German dance firm based by Pina Bausch (1940-2009), the legendary determine who remodeled the panorama of up to date dance.

“After Pina handed away in 2009, I usually noticed her works carried out on stage, as a result of Tanztheater Wuppertal was nonetheless touring worldwide. Whereas it made me blissful, I used to be additionally curious,” Lee continues on the stage.

“The unique troupe members retire and new dancers be part of. I started to see Tanztheater in a brand new gentle,” stated Lee in a current interview with The Korea Herald.

“Our bodies are changed, however the dance persists. How is Bausch’s artistic spirit transferred to the brand new era? Can a choreography stay the identical when the our bodies that carry out it have modified? Can it nonetheless be referred to as the identical work?”

These questions are on the coronary heart of “Dancing with P,” at present exhibiting at U+ Stage within the LG Arts Heart, Seoul. The 100-minute documentary play blurs the road between actuality and fiction, weaving via time, reminiscence and the notion of artistic inheritance.

Lee brings collectively six performers — actors, dancers and artists from diversified backgrounds — to discover the legacy of Bausch’s motion language, philosophies and artistic course of.

The mission began in 2021. By early 2024, Lee had performed interviews with veteran dancers who had spent over twenty years with Bausch, in addition to youthful performers carrying on her legacy. In July, he introduced first-generation Tanztheater members Kim Na-young and Eddie Martinez, who had labored instantly with Bausch, to Seoul for a three-week workshop with the solid.

The result’s a singular mix of documentary theater, choreography and private reflection. The manufacturing additionally features a shocking character — a ChatGPT-based chatbot named “Grasp P,” programmed with information about Bausch.

When Lee asks the chatbot, “The place are you?” to which Grasp P responds, “I exist within the vibrations of your feelings and the instructions of your questions. I’m current whenever you want me.”

Six performers — Na Kyung-min, Sung Soo-yeon, Kim Yong-bin, Jung Jae-pil, Zunbul Betul and Hwang Soo-hyun — every standing on the crossroads of their very own previous and current, carry their private expertise to the stage. However the performers comply with a scripted dialogue, developed from their workshops, blurring the road between narrative and improvisation.

Within the question-and-answer dialogue between Grasp P and director Lee, the performers apply Bausch’s well-known query “What strikes folks?” and discover “What strikes me? How will we join right here and now? How can we feature ahead the legacies we inherit?”

“I see ‘Dancing with P’ as an evolving dialog — not solely among the many performers but in addition with the viewers,” stated Lee. “As we confront our personal values and the legacies, I hope we are able to look inside ourselves and what values we must always depart behind even after we’re gone.”

The play runs via Sunday, with English subtitles out there at weekend performances.

Lee, who can be a professor of performing and performing arts at Sungkyunkwan College, is about to develop into the primary South Korean director invited to Munich’s Residenz Theater, the place he’s set to direct a brand new manufacturing in April 2025.