A newborn mechanical body learns to walk

The performance explores gravity, friction and human walking. It asks us about the meaning of being bipedal and walking on the ground. The steel plate stage suggests a possibility of new spaces and movements. It also shows an experiment of unique movements using the materiality of the steel plate and magnet.

his first performance of the series <On the Bird’s Day > deals with the “fear of the thirteen Ahae.”[1] While the thirteen Ahae in “Crow's Eye View” written by Korean poet Yi Sang symbolize people’s anxiety during the tumultuous period of modernization in the early 20th century, the thirteen Ahae in <On the Bird’s Day > refer to today’s fear which appeared somewhere in the 21st century. These are shamans who connect heaven and earth as well as divinity and humanity. Before starting their journey to this world, the 13 Ahae are born with mechanical bodies and learn to walk on the ground. Walking step by step and feeling gravity and friction, they move in the human way of walking. Their movements become dances. The thirteen Ahae choreograph their own group dance in the world on a steel plate.

[1] “Ahae” refer to the thirteen children depicted in the 1934 poem “Crow's Eye View” written by Korean poet Yi Sang. “Ahae” is an archaic word meaning “child” in Korean.