REVIEW: Boram Kim: Gwantong 18

©️Ambiguous Dance Boram Kim Guantong 18

Korean choreographer and dancer Boram Kim, founder of Ambiguous Dance Company, which has repeatedly amazed UK audiences since 2022, makes one last strike with his final solo, Gwantong 18, at The Coronet Theatre. The result is an astonishingly dark-humoured and physically demanding 70 minutes: an excessively energised hybrid of mime, hip-hop, street dance, waltz, contemporary dance, ballet and more.

In Korean, gwantong (관통) means penetration, piercing or passing through. The number eighteen, as Kim explained in his interview with The Coronet Theatre, is pronounced sip-pal, which sounds very similar to ssibal, a strong Korean swear word, and so channels a raw and honest self-reflection.

Revisiting his 2018 solo, Kim restages Gwantong 18 with piles of colourful suitcases, a pink sofa bed and decorative toy figures on both sides of the stage, and determinedly pushes the body to its ultimate limit. His choreography also combines an affectionate acknowledgement of ageing, as he returns to Gwantong 18 eight years on, with a paradoxically heroic yet charismatic refusal of the new challenges that ageing brings.

The eighteen sections are numbered 1 to 18, with the numbers hidden cleverly in unexpected places and picked out by the lighting only at the start of each section. In each one, Kim pushes his physical limit in a mix of different dance styles and bounces back straight away. Halfway through, Kim deliberately stages a dodgy knee that no longer obeys him, the physical challenge of holding ballet positions, a struggle to coordinate himself and wrestle with his clothing, and dramatic sobbing over where to go next. Yet these are highly choreographed movements with a light-hearted mime spirit, alongside some audience participation. Kim's almost flawless flow of movement and incredible stamina signal what dancers usually achieve in their prime, rather than an attempt to paint an intimate portrait of an ageing body.

While the audience enjoys numerous wow moments and is constantly surprised by Kim's energy and physical capacity, the lack of vulnerability in actually dealing with the ageing body somehow flattens the performance. Certain sections also repeat one another in a postdramatic manner, leaving the audience occasionally disconnected from Kim's repetition of excellence. But I read this lack of vulnerability against the backdrop of an East Asian culture I am so familiar with, where superb craftsmanship and being the best are perhaps the only things appreciated in a profession, leaving little space to explore softness, fallibility and failure in the restaging of Gwantong 18.

The soundtrack, made up of overly familiar Western pop tracks, classical music and sound effects, is a relatively weak element of the performance. As a big fan of contemporary dance, I would love an integrated and original soundscape working with an effective lighting design, which feels always quite important to me for a dance piece. In one section, Kim dances through the full, nearly six-minute 'Bohemian Rhapsody' in a literal, word-for-word illustrative manner, almost like a funny karaoke version, combined with Michael Jackson's hip movements. The song arrives rather randomly and connects only loosely with the other sections. It feels like watching Kim in his studio, improvising or warming up and enjoying the song in a private moment. Music and lighting alike are functional but not memorable.

Overall, Gwantong 18 succeeds in its uncompromisable high energy, pushing extreme physical limits to the last breath with no sentimentality but a big dose of dark humour. Kim's choreography in most sections is so fluid, merging all the different dance styles effortlessly, and it is surely a singular signature of Kim that leaves a lasting impression.

★★★★

For more information, please visit: https://www.thecoronettheatre.com/whats-on/boram-kim-gwantong-18/

Credits

Choreographer & Performer: Boram Kim
Assistant Choreographer, Sound Operator & Guest Performer: KyeongMin Jang
Lighting Design: DaeDoo Bae
Stage Manager: JaeMin Park
Tour Producer: HeeJin Lee
Produced by Ambiguous Dance Company
In Association with: Producer Group DOT
With the support of KOFICE (Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange)

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