The Brooklyn Rail

Eun-Me Ahn’s distinct choreographic worlds are explosions of technicolor fantasies made real. Born in Korea in 1963, she studied contemporary dance at Ehwa Womans University before founding her own troupe, Ahn Eun-Me Company, in 1988. In 1991, Ahn moved to New York to study at the Tisch School of the Arts, remaining in the city for ten years. A decade later, she returned to Korea and set forth establishing her own unique choreographic and performance practice. An outpouring of works followed, the best-known of which include Dancing Grandmothers (2011), Let Me Change Your Name (2017), Symphoca Princess Bari (2007), and Dragons (2021).

Today, Ahn is a leading artist of the contemporary Korean scene and tours all over the world with her kaleidoscopic productions. In advance of the premiere of Ahn’s latest project at the Venice Biennale on April 18, 2024, Rail contributor Phoebe Roberts spoke to the choreographer over Zoom about her history in dance, her choreographic process, and what she hopes to accomplish next. Ahn had just finished a rehearsal with real-life grandmothers for an upcoming performance of Dancing Grandmothers in Miryang, South Korea: “They were screaming and smiling and sweating!” she shared enthusiastically.

Phoebe Roberts (Rail): How did you first come to dance?

Eun-Me Ahn: When I was a five-year-old girl, I was playing in my village. At the time in Korea there was nothing for kids to play with, so I just did whatever I could: running around and looking and meeting people and searching. Then one day I found a different world. There was a group of people standing on the street and they were dressed in beautiful colors. I was shocked. I went over and asked them, “What is this?”, and they smiled and said, “Oh, this is dance.” They were actually dancers in traditional Korean costumes. And I then said, “Oh, that’s so lovely. I want to learn it—I want to learn it and I want to be there in this beautiful world.” That was my dream from that moment on: to make up the world in the color of those costumes.

Rail: That sounds like one of your pieces.

Ahn: Yes, exactly.

Rail: When did you know that you wanted to choreograph? Was it at the same moment you saw those dancers in the street, wearing the beautiful costumes, or did the desire come later?

Ahn: When I was five, I didn’t know what choreographing was. But when I was six, seven, I needed something to do because I wasn’t going to school. I would call my friend who lived next door to me and tell him, “Come on, let’s play.” Nobody had to teach me what to do; I just used my brain to try and be happy. I created little scenarios, like “Today, you’re going to be Papa, and I’m going to be Mama. Let’s eat something. Let’s cook together.” After a while, I realized I loved to create something, I loved to produce something that makes me crazy and happy. Then suddenly, I knew what dance was, and that I would be a choreographer.

Rail: You incorporate many different traditions into your practice, including classical Korean dance and shamanism. How do you go about absorbing all these varying elements?

Ahn: I think the idea came to me when I was still a freshman in university. You know, in Korea, in my generation, we had a tough life—economically, politically. When I went to the department of dance, I hoped to find something new, something fresh that could change my life. But the teachers had all been trained in the old style and only wanted to do what they knew. So what did I do? I went out to search by myself. I went to the record shop, and the owner of the record shop—he was a young guy—knew a lot about music. Every day I went there and would ask him, “What’s this? What’s this new music?” That was my first kind of collaboration: I was learning from somebody, getting some new information. Since then, I’ve met many musicians, fine artists, and architects, and we’ve talked and shared our ideas and our curiosities about life. I store all the information I learn from them in my brain and then put it into my dances.

Rail: Your work has often been celebrated for the way it plays with gender roles and subverts our expectations of how people should or should not behave. How do you view the function of gender across your pieces?

Ahn: I think it comes from personal experience, because when I was young, Korea was very conservative with regard to how a woman should act. They always said girls should get married early, have long hair, be beautiful. And I said: for who? Why? So a man can fall in love with me? No, I don’t need that kind of thing. That’s why I cut my hair. On the street, everybody said, “Oh, look at her, the crazy woman.” It was unusual at the time to see a woman with a shaved head—this was in the eighties. I thought, okay, what I have to do then, what I want, is to be a strong woman who speaks loudly, who speaks what I am thinking.

When I started choreographing, I tried to make women characters who were very independent and brave. But in every human, there are two roles, two different characters: the feminine and the masculine. We are all the same. That’s why even twenty years ago when I was making pieces, I didn’t dress dancers in men’s pants or women’s dresses. I didn’t divide by gender for costume or movement. Every dancer is already going to express themselves differently because of their own individuality.

Rail: Speaking of costume, could you touch on its role in your work? You are known for featuring avant-garde and unusual designs in your performances.

Ahn: To me, costume is like a different character. I’m always trying to make it like a new character, which the audience can look at and get ideas. You know, you can wear any color. You can even wear underwear over the top of your head if you want to. I’m always trying to impart a message to the audience through color and design. Also, dance is a language of the body, so the costumes have to be functional. The dancers have to feel comfortable. That’s why I’m using costumes in which they can dance comfortably and easily. Then, their bodies can fly more.

Rail: In one of your most famous pieces, Dancing Grandmothers, you choreographed older Korean women, and you have since worked with other non-professional dancers, including teenagers and middle-aged men. Could you speak about your decision to work with these groups as opposed to trained performers?

Ahn: Every time I would watch my mom move, it was like, “Oh, mom, you look so cute when you dance.” Then one day I realized that in Korea, nobody had made any record of social dancing, especially in the period after 1923. That’s around when my mom was born, and they didn’t educate women in dance then. That generation got married, had kids, then there was the war, and nobody was really focused on dancing.

That’s why I decided to take a camera around Korea and film different grandmothers. I asked them, “Can you dance?” and they all said, “No, I never learned.” I said, “It’s okay, just dance. We’re going to play music and then let’s dance.” I watched them, researching their body movement. At the end, I realized, wow, this is a kind of body museum. When they dance, you can see their history in their body language; it’s in their memory chip. I had this feeling that I was seeing their whole lives through the dance. Afterward, I cried and thought, My gosh, this is really something. From that moment on, I fell in love with working with non-professional dancers. You can see how people change through dance. Without language, you can understand what they want to say—it’s very honest material.

Rail: On April 18, 2024, you will present Pinky Pinky “Good”, a performance on the island of San Giacomo in Venice as part of the Biennale Arte. How did this project come about and what will it entail?

Ahn: In 2023, the art critic and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist came to London to see my production Dragons; I knew him already, but he had never seen my work. Afterward, we said goodbye, and two months later he called me and said, “I would like to invite you to San Giacomo.” He explained that San Giacomo was a small island that wasn’t open to the public yet, but that it was going to become a center for art and culture. It sounded interesting, and I trust Hans, so I went to visit the island to see what kind of performance I should give there.

In my show, I invite the audience to join my progress and follow me around the island for one hour. We’re gonna dance together, and play together, and discuss what kind of island it should be, and then we are gonna deliver our ideas to Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, who owns the foundation that runs San Giacomo. I can’t wait to see everyone’s reaction; it’s going to be pretty wild. The good thing is it’s an island, so they can’t leave. They can go to the toilet maybe, but that’s all: they have to watch and stay until I’m finished. I want to squeeze the audience and make juice out of them!

Rail: There’s been a lot of criticism surrounding the Biennale this year, particularly due to its inclusion of the Israel pavilion. In the face of political upheaval and strife, what is the role of dance, and further, of the dance-maker?

Ahn: It’s hard to talk about in a short time, but throughout history there have been people who don’t have power—people who are suffering and having a hard time. That is something that has always been true. I think that through the whole process of dance, I’m trying to let everybody be brave and come together. When you dance, you can find an idea of peace, and then we can talk peacefully with this energy. You know, when you dance, anger releases from your body. That’s why we love to party; when you’re partying, you can see how people change once they start dancing. Tension is released from the body and they can relax. Of course, this is an oversimplification, but generally, I think dance can bring some form of relief. That’s why I think we need dance classes in the curriculum at kids’ schools. Let them run and cry and shout.

Rail: Beyond the performance in Venice, what is on the horizon for you?

Ahn: I’m trying to find something that I’ve never found before. That’s why I’m always studying. I want to ask myself many questions and be curious about the future. The performance in Venice is good for this, because it’s a new experience and a new project from which I can learn a lot and form an idea about what I will do next. But I’m not only a choreographer: I’m also a sculptor and an artist and I work with many different mediums. You know, I’m trying to make a new world!