REVIEW: Abyss Ekah

As part of the A Festival of Korean Dance at The Place, 99 Art Company presented the double bill Ekah and Abyss, two works exploring grief across intimate and collective scales.

The shorter and more recent piece Ekah opened the programme. Choreographed and performed by Hye-rim Jang alongside pianist and composer Daniel Kang, the duet circles grief through hesitation, resistance and surrender. The interaction between dancer and piano carried the piece. Kang’s playing moved between composed structure and improvisatory drift, while Jang responded with the same elasticity. The piano ceased to function as accompaniment and became part of the choreography itself: climbed over, leaned against, crossed carefully. When Jang touched the keys directly, small fragments of sound broke through the music like involuntary disclosures of grief.

Images accumulated gradually: sand running through the hands, breath amplified into the theatre, low human chanting emerging from darkness. The choreography remained sparse and restrained. Even minor gestures seemed loaded with pressure.

After the interval came Abyss, originally created around 2016 in response to the Sewol ferry disaster, which killed 304 people, many of them school students. The tragedy left a profound scar on South Korean society and continues to shape public discussions around mourning, accountability and collective memory.

If Ekah approached grief on an intimate scale, Abyss expanded it into something communal and historical. Seven dancers dressed in black moved around vocalist Jin-sirl Suh, who appeared in white traditional Korean costume designed by Kyoung-sul Bae. The contrast immediately suggested funeral ritual and memorial processions. Keon-young Kim’s lighting kept much of the stage in semi-darkness, and the candlelight shifted the atmosphere toward vigil or ancestral rite.

Rapid spinning sequences repeatedly formed wave patterns across the stage — sea currents, storm movement, perhaps even the crossing into an underworld river drawn from East Asian mythology. The dancers’ bodies folded and rose continuously, soft and tidal. Each performer carried a small boat with their fingers, a direct but effective image of passage and mortality.

Sound remained central across both works. Breathing, sighing and whispered vocalisations turned the body itself into a source of rhythm. In Abyss, fragments recalling pansori cut through the minimalist score with startling sharpness.

The work draws heavily on the Korean concept of han (한), an idea often associated with accumulated sorrow, resentment, endurance and historical trauma. The term carries layers of meaning shaped by colonisation, war, separation and collective loss. Here on the stage, han appeared less as theory than as physical condition: grief embedded in posture, repetition and breath.

Without the historical and cultural context being fully articulated, parts of the performance initially seemed slightly distant. The post-show discussion, in which the artists spoke sincerely about the movement between private mourning and public catastrophe, clarified many of the work’s recurring images. One comment from the discussion remained with me afterwards: “we can’t fully understand other people’s pain.” The evening never attempted to resolve that distance. Instead, Ekah and Abyss approached grief as something that can only be carried collectively for a limited time, through movement, sound and attention.

Abyss & Ekah by 99 Art Company A Festival of Korean Dance ©️Photo by Ikin Yum

★★★★

For more information about Abyss / Ekah by 99 Art Company, please visit: https://theplace.org.uk/events/summer-26-abyss-ekah/

Credits

99 Art Company

Artistic Director: Hye-rim Jang

Deputy Artistic Director: Seo-yi Jang

Rehearsal Director: Go-woon Lee

Project Producer: Jean Uh

Company Manager: Ji-won Choi

Lighting Operator: Na-yeong Hong

Abyss

Dancers: Go-woon Lee, Hyo-young Song, Eun-yi Kim, Seo-yi Jang, Se-ryoung Choo, Seung-a Lee, Soo-kyung Lee

Vocalist: Jin-sirl Suh

Choreographer: Hye-rim Jang

Writer: Joo-hee Lee

Vocal Trainer & Chorus, Composer: Jin-sirl Suh

Lighting Designer: Keon-young Kim

Music Director & Arranger, Composer: Young-jo Leem

Costume Designer: Kyoung-sul Bae

Prop Design: Yu-jin Kim

Music copyright: Jonsi & Alex ‘Howl’

Ekah

Dancer: Hye-rim Jang

Musician, Composer and Music Director: Daniel Kang

Writer: Hye-rim Jang

Costume Designer: Line Plant

Prop Idea: Tae-yang Lee

Part of A Festival of Korean Dance 2026, presented by The Place and the Korean Cultural Centre UK, in partnership with Lowry, Tramway, Dance City and Pavilion Dance South West, and supported by SIDance and MODAFE.

Abyss & Ekah by 99 Art Company A Festival of Korean Dance ©️Photo by Ikin Yum