‘Afanador,' flamenco reinvented, comes to Seoul
When we think of flamenco, certain images spring to mind: a dancer in a vivid, ruffled dress with skirt flying outward in a whirl of motion; sharp, dramatic arm movements and hands twisting elegantly through the air; heeled shoes striking the wooden floor in a rapid-fire rhythm of castanets.
But the Ballet Nacional de Espana's "Afanador," created in high-profile collaboration with Spanish contemporary choreographer Marcos Morau, offers a stark departure from these familiar images.
Premiered in 2023, it stands out as one of BNE's latest and most daring major productions -- flamenco rendered in stark black and white, with sweeping ensemble scenes that evoke avant-garde and high-fashion imagery. Extravagant and born from the beauty of light and shadow, it offers a highly theatrical and deliberately distorted vision of the traditional form.
"It was like encountering an entirely new world," Ruben Olmo, the artistic director of BNE, said in Spanish during a press conference on Monday at the GS Arts Center in Seoul.
"Through our collaboration with Marcos Morau, we sought to bring a new form to Spanish dance. Morau and his company, La Veronal, possess an exceptionally unique dance language. By blending their language with flamenco, we wanted to present audiences with a different universe."
Founded in 1978, BNE is Spain's national dance company dedicated to preserving and evolving the country's dance heritage, including escuela bolera, flamenco, academic, stylized and regional folk dances. Since 2019, the company has been led by Olmo, who has emphasized both honoring tradition and pushing creative boundaries.
The work draws inspiration from Colombian photographer Ruven Afanador's black-and-white photography collections "1000 Kisses" (2009) and "The Men of Flamenco" (2014), which capture dancers against the stark, searing light and deep shadows of Andalusia. In these collections, dancers often appear in avant-garde haute couture or even nude, offering a surreal, boundary-pushing vision of flamenco.
Building on Afanador's surreal imagery, Morau and BNE approached "Afanador" as a creative dialogue between photography and dance.
Onstage, some 30 dancers pose as if for a photograph in a studio-like setting. At times, they seem to become part of the picture itself; at others, the space transforms into something resembling a bullring. The dancers sculpt static or dynamic, geometric forms, moving fluidly between stillness and explosive energy.
Creative team and dancers alike acknowledged the production's challenges.
Miguel Angel Corbacho, associate director and choreographer, recalled, "We had to step outside the framework of Spanish dance as we had learned it from childhood. These were movements that didn't belong to the traditional canon. It was dynamic, energetic but demanding extreme precision at the same time."
Principal dancer Inmaculada Salomon echoed the sentiment: "It was a collision of the flamenco world and contemporary dance, and every part of the process was a challenge," she said. "The way we worked with Morau was completely different from the methods we were used to at the company. It required leaving behind the universe each of us had built. But it was an opportunity for growth -- both for the company and for us as individuals."
Among the performers is Korean dancer Youn Sou-jung, a corps de ballet member and the first Asian dancer to join BNE in 2019.
"It's my first time performing in Korea with the company. I'm thrilled to be able to perform here,' said Youn.
She described Afanador as a fresh and striking take on flamenco. "In Spanish dance, we don't usually use the neck as much, but working with Morau, I remember feeling pain from how much neck movement was involved." She added, "It's a production that requires dancers to perform ensemble pieces in very tight spaces, so we had to be very careful about breathing and coordination."
The BNE will perform "Afanador" three times, from Tuesday to Thursdat, at the GS Arts Center.
The performance is part of the newly inaugurated GS Arts Center's flagship 'Artists' series spotlighting two to three multidisciplinary creators each year for an in-depth exploration of their work.
This year, the featured artists are Spanish choreographer-director Morau and South African visual artist and theater-maker William Kentridge. 'Afanador' is one of three Morau works to be presented at the GS Arts Center this spring. The others include 'Pasionaria' (May 16-18) and "Totentanz -- Morgen ist die Frage" (also known as "Dance of Death"). Morau will visit Seoul for performances in May.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
a day ago
- Korea Herald
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez announce their engagement
Soccer great Cristiano Ronaldo and his long-term partner Georgina Rodriguez are engaged. The 31-year-old Rodríguez announced the happy news on Instagram on Monday with a photograph showing a huge ring on her finger. "Yes, I do," read the caption in Spanish. "In this and in all my lives." Rodríguez and the 40-year-old Ronaldo have two daughters together. She has also helped to raise Ronaldo's other three children. The couple lost one of their newborn twins, a boy, in 2022. Ronaldo met Rodríguez in 2016 when she worked at a Gucci store in Madrid. The former Real Madrid and Manchester United star now plays for Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia. (AP)
Korea Herald
4 days ago
- Korea Herald
In ‘Hunger,' love so deep it crosses death — and consumes what's left behind
In buzzworthy cult classic, Choi Jin-young turns grief into hunger, questions the price we put on human life At its core, 'Hunger' is a love story — visceral, tender and almost unbearably devoted — that dares to push the boundaries of what it means to love someone beyond death. The macabre romance follows Gu and Dam, two lovers who grew up in the same neighborhood and remained obsessive and inseparable into adulthood, until Gu is murdered in the street by loan sharks. In a moment when time seems to stop, Dam cradles his body, carries it home and cleanses him in a ritualistic act. Then, slowly, she consumes him — literally entombing his body within her own, where her partner will live again. With each bite, she revisits bittersweet memories of their life together. Written by Choi Jin-young, one of Korea's leading literary voices, 'Hunger,' released in 2015, became a word-of-mouth sensation. The cult classic was recently published in the UK with a translation by Soje, and is soon to be released in North America, Italy, the Netherlands, China, Indonesia and across Spanish-speaking countries. Despite its gruesome premise, the novella unfolds with a sadness and an almost poetic calm, as though grief itself demands the act. The book is less about cannibalism than about why someone might feel compelled to cross that line. It's a meditation on love, the gutting pain of sudden loss and grief, and a society that treats human lives as disposable. Choi says the idea came from an unsettlingly tender place. 'While writing this story, I often looked back on the times I was with my lover. When I was in love, I sometimes imagined nibbling at and tearing off my lover's flesh, like cotton candy. That thought never felt grotesque,' said Choi, 43, in an interview with The Korea Herald last month. 'In Korea, people say they want to 'bite' someone they love dearly. In this story, eating wasn't monstrous — it was simply another way to express love.' One shadow that hangs over the two throughout is 'a grave of debt,' which 'became a parasite clinging to Gu's life, eating away at his humanity and sucking him dry.' Thus, the act of cannibalism becomes a device to show that society's treatment of individuals can be even more barbaric. Even in death, collectors hound Gu for repayment — a commentary on rampant capitalism and class inequality, where some lives are valued while others are treated not as human beings, but merely as bodies. 'I imagined eating as a way of mourning. but I also wanted to reflect my discomfort with how easily people put a price on human life,' Choi said. "When someone dies, compensation is the first thing discussed, translating a person's life into capital. I wanted to ask: If eating someone is barbaric, isn't buying and selling life also barbaric?' Love, in all its complexity Not every love story is beautiful in the conventional sense. Sometimes love is gutting and haunting, yet still undeniably beautiful. 'Hunger' occupies a strange dichotomy — part heart-aching love story, part disturbing violence — standing as an ode to doomed love. Before writing this book, Choi wrestled with a fundamental question: 'Do we need love at all?' 'Love can bring happiness, but it also breeds fights, misunderstandings, jealousy, obsession, fear of separation, and ultimately, inevitable parting. I kept asking myself why we must love if it leads to such pain." She felt that portraying an idyllic love story with a message of 'Let's love' would lack conviction. Instead, she sought to show a love that is painful, unfortunate and haunting, and to ask: 'Would you still choose to love?' 'For that reason, I created the characters Dam and Gu. I wrote the novel deeply empathizing with Dam, who loves Gu.' Near the end of the novel, she wrote, 'I'm not saying let's be happy. I'm saying let's be together. I don't mind being unhappy with you.' At that moment, Choi realized, 'I wrote this novel to find that sentence.' 'Starting from the question, 'Must we love?' the novel ends with the answer: 'Love that stays together despite unhappiness.' Since then, I have also tried to be someone who stays through hard times. Writing a novel is also a process that changes the writer." Choi sees love as the emotional core of her work. She wants to explore not only its warm and beautiful aspects but also its dark and fearful sides. 'I like to write about things I want to understand rather than what I already know. Love is something we can never fully grasp, which is why I keep writing about it.' But love is also something she wants to do well in this lifetime. 'To love well requires many skills and effort. Wisdom, patience, imagination, a spirit of sacrifice, tolerance, empathy, understanding, adaptability and wise judgment all need to be cultivated. By striving to love well, I believe both myself and my life will grow broader and deeper,' said Choi. 'And the love I portray in my stories is the same. I want to capture the wide, diverse and ever-changing spectrum of love. I want to keep exploring what love truly means.' How 'Hunger' defied time, took back bestseller lists When Koreans talk about 'Hunger,' the conversation inevitably leads to discussing a phenomenon that publishers and bookstores cannot explain. When the novella was published in 2015, it did not do well. But around 2020, it quietly gained traction among readers in their 20s and, a year later, its popularity among young adults exploded, driving a 234.6 percent increase in sales that year alone. Teen purchases skyrocketed by 8,500 percent, fueling the book's remarkable resurgence, according to Yes24, a major online book retailer. There was no special promotion or triggering event — the book simply caught on through word of mouth. Soon after, readers in their 30s and 40s joined in, cementing the book as a steady seller. In 2023, it ranked 9th on Kyobo Book Center's overall bestseller list and 19th in 2024. Roughly 400,000 copies have been sold as of August 2025, according to the Korean publisher EunHaengNaMu Publishing. Choi reflected on why the novel resonates so deeply with young readers. 'This is a very personal opinion, but I thought back to the fairy tales we read as children. Fairy tales and myths contain far stranger and more grotesque elements than eating a corpse. For instance, tigers devour mothers and impersonate them, siblings become the sun and the moon, witches are burned alive, people survive inside whales, or are born with magical hair. Mythological heroes kill fathers and devour sons,' explained Choi. 'In childhood, impossibility doesn't exist in storytelling. But as we grow and become socialized, we begin to question and set boundaries — 'this doesn't make sense.' Some adults cannot accept the fictional elements in a novel like this, while teenagers seem more willing to accept them.' On a similar note, Choi believes younger generations digest the intense, tragic and pure love between Gu and Dam far more naturally. 'Adults' definitions of love often narrow with age, excluding different kinds of love. When we consider the classics beloved over generations, their tragic love stories often end in heartbreak. Literature's role, I think, is to convey tragedy not as mere sorrow but as a deeper look into life's hidden realities. People cherish and deeply empathize with such stories.'
Korea Herald
16-07-2025
- Korea Herald
With 'nervous fear,' producer Shin Chun-soo brings 'The Great Gatsby' to Korea
Broadway musical runs simultaneously in Broadway, West End and Seoul On Aug. 1, 'The Great Gatsby' musical will mark a milestone with simultaneous performances in three of the world's major musical theater hubs — New York, London, and Seoul — just 15 months after its Broadway premiere. Behind this ambitious endeavor is Korean producer Shin Chun-soo, founder and CEO of OD Company. 'On Broadway or the West End, it's nervous excitement. In Seoul, it's a nervous fear,' Shin told reporters during a press conference on Tuesday. 'Korean audiences are terrifying. They're smart, discerning and critical,' he noted. Last year, when unveiling 'The Great Gatsby' on Broadway, making his long-time dream come true, Shin said he wanted to bring the musical to his hometown within two years. What he had in his mind then was a production in Korean, but his desire to share the musical in its original form and language led him to present a production featuring Broadway actors. Shin emphasized that the English-language performance is intended to preserve the universality of the original. 'A Korean-language version may be more emotionally resonant for local audiences,' he acknowledged, 'but this run aims to show the original in its most powerful form.' Though based on the original, the Seoul staging brings its own creative flair. All sets and costumes were newly designed, and the cast was completely reassembled. 'Every production adds new layers,' said Shin. 'But the biggest difference in Seoul is the actors. The chemistry among the Korean, American and British creative teams is something special.' For 15 weeks, Broadway actors Matt Doyle and Senzel Ahmady portray Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, respectively, at GS Arts Center in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. 'I've been on Broadway for 20 years,' said Doyle. 'But I realized that not leaving the city for two decades had narrowed my view. There's so much more to explore, and this was my chance to step outside my comfort zone.' Doyle, who won the 2022 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his role in "Company," said he connected with Gatsby's intensity and emotional longing, and promised to bring 'honesty' to the role. 'For me, I always concentrate on coming from a place of honesty,' he said. 'And if it's coming from what I know and what I've experienced, then that will translate to the audience — and that will only lift the character up.' Ahmady said she has long admired the show and particularly Eva Noblezada, who originated the role of Daisy on Broadway. 'I was actually a big fan of 'The Great Gatsby' when it first opened on Broadway a year ago,' she said, adding that it was a bit harder to leave New York because the actress known for her role as Jasmine in the "Aladdin" tour felt like she was just beginning there. "I'm so honored to be performing with Matt, and I learn something new every single day, whether it's about performing or just about life," she said. Premiered in April 2024, the Broadway production has grossed $7.8 million as of June 29, while the West End version has recorded 1.13 million pounds ($1.45 million) in sales as of June 23, according to OD Company. The Seoul run will begin with preview performances on Aug. 1, officially opening in early August and continuing through Nov. 9.
