KOMA

Michèle Anne De Mey, fascinated all her life by tales and legends, has undertaken an adaptation of one of Korea’s founding myths. The tale – Tangun Shin Wha – tells how the gods granted a bear the power to be transformed into a man because of the patience and courage he shows. But instead of turning into a man, he is reborn in female form and ends up marrying Hwan-ung, the son of the god Hwan-in, who is so moved by such a display of sincerity and determination that he falls in love with her. According to the myth, the entire Korean race is born of this union.

Rich in allegory, the fable provides the choreographer with the perfect opportunity for a reflection on birth and childhood. Questioning these states of being inevitably leads to a contemplation of two of their corollaries: patience and ordeal.

On a stage deliberately stripped bare to represent the cave into which the bear withdraws for his transformation (reminiscent of Plato), the Korean dancer Kyung Hee Woo (P.A.R.T.S.) sets off on a course that leads her from animalism – represented by the bearskin that she sheds in front of us – to humanity, of which her entire body, now unveiled, is representative. In order to achieve this metamorphosis on stage, Michèle Anne De Mey uses ideas borrowed from the Taekwondo register: the katas of the Korean karate style form the secular structure that she uses in support of the creation of her moves. If we consider the position of importance that the animal metaphor has in certain styles of martial arts, it becomes clear how apt this vocabulary of movement is here.

Koma (“bear” in Korean) is a solo that takes on the form of a transformation, speaking out about the forces that can drive a being when it is transformed by the power of desire.