Spotlight Stealers: Modu Arts Theater Revolutionizes the Global Stage with ‘The Shape of Life(s)’ and ‘Ma/Theus

▲ Poster for overseas invited works ‘The Shape(s) of Life’ and ‘Ma/Theus’. ⓒModu Arts Theater

Modu Arts Theater, Korea’s first performance hall for the disabled, will present two overseas works as part of its 2024 planning program.

The French invited work ‘Forme(s) de Vie’ will be performed from the 14th to the 16th, and the Hungarian work ‘M/OTHERS’ will be performed from the 21st to the 23rd. Both works are dance performances, and will meet the audience on a four-sided stage where they can see the performers as close as possible.

‘Shape(s) of Life’ features three dancers and a performer who has lost mobility (a former dancer and a boxer). This work summons the modern concept of the ‘augmented body’ in a form that combines performance and film.

The film shown during the performance embodies the dance of those who cannot go on stage due to loss of mobility, while also adding to the way of being of those who will go on stage. Along with the ‘human prosthesis’ that the dancer will embody, a former boxer and dancer suffering from a chronic disease becomes the link connecting the people on the screen and the stage space.

In conjunction with the performance, the ‘Augmented Body Exploration Workshop’ conducted by Shonen, who was in charge of directing, will be held in the main practice room on the first floor of the Mode Arts Theater from November 11th to 12th at 10 am. Recruitment targets are children with visible (exercise, physical) and invisible (developmental, mental, neurodiversity, etc.) disabilities aged 5 to 13. A maximum of 8 people can apply per session.

‘Ma/Dus’ is choreographer Ester Salamon’s second work dancing with his former dancer mother, and explores the changes in the mother-daughter relationship as she ages. It opens up the experience of sharing time with each other through ways of action, emotion, and cognition, creating a space with traces and a state of union.

Their duet performance, which captures poetic meaning to each other by feeling and carefully looking at each other’s gestures, becomes a time of recreating identity through the process of constantly changing and intertwining bodies. It elicits empathy, care, compassion, care, and consideration in the audience.

German newspaper Dorion Weijmann commented on ‘Ma/Dus’: “A foot advancing provocatively slowly towards the daughter’s face, a fist blocking the mother’s knee – we find surprisingly persuasive images of these entangled relationships.” did it

Detailed information about the performance can be found on the Modu Arts Theater website.