The renowned Korean traditional dance company 99 Art Company is launching a comprehensive three-week European tour of their acclaimed contemporary dance work "Je: Burnt Offering," bringing their unique blend of traditional Korean movement and modern artistic expression to audiences across five countries and seven cities. The tour begins Tuesday in Andorra, commemorating the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Andorra.
The mesmerizing performance opens with two dancers seated quietly on a large white canvas under dim lighting, clasping each other's hands in a meditative pose while holding sticks of charcoal in their free hands. Moving in perfect unison with deliberate, rhythmic, and almost sacred gestures, they begin to draw as their movements repeat and intensify. As the performance unfolds, their hair loosens, their breathing grows heavier, and the charcoal begins to blur and smudge across the canvas, creating black traces that evolve from resembling sparks to flowers and finally to ashes, transforming the entire experience into what feels like a spiritual ritual or ceremony in motion.
"I wanted to create a dance of prayer," explained Jang Hye-rim, the company's artistic director and choreographer. "While choreographing this work, I kept asking myself what a sincere prayer means in our time." The 60-minute performance draws its rhythmic foundation from "seungmu," a traditional Korean Buddhist dance historically performed by monks, incorporating the "jangdan" (rhythmic cycles) and melodies of folk ritual while echoing the Old Testament concept of burnt sacrifice reflected in its title.
Accompanied by live performances on traditional Korean string instruments including the gayageum and geomungo, the work serves as a profound tribute to the dignity of labor and the sacredness embedded in daily life. The piece honors routines that may appear mundane or tedious yet carry within them a spirit of quiet endurance and perseverance. "To me, seungmu feels like a form of prayer, like a dance in which one completely lets go of the self," Jang noted. "As I developed that idea through movement and music, it became a meditation on labor and the meaning of genuine devotion."
Throughout the performance, elements such as perspiration, breath, and shared energy between the dancers become integral components of the artistic expression, embodying both the concept of toil and transcendence. In one particularly striking scene, the dancers appear wearing safety helmets and headlamps, and as the stage darkens around them, they take on the appearance of weary coal miners completing a long, exhausting day of work underground.
"Living life is like a continuous process of burning your time and energy down to ashes. It may feel wasteful, but there is a certain sublime beauty and sacredness in how people endure and persist through the repetition of work that may at first seem vain," Jang reflected. "The work is my tribute to that perseverance – to the sweat, tears and effort of dancers, artists and all people at work."
Following the opening performance in Andorra, the European tour will continue through Italy with shows in Bari on November 15 and Rome on November 18. The company will then travel to France for performances in Paris on November 21 and Thonon-les-Bains on November 25, followed by shows in Belgium on November 28-29, before concluding the tour in Prague on December 2.
"Burnt Offering" originally premiered in 2016 as part of Sweden Connection, a collaborative project between the Korea National Contemporary Dance Company and Skanes Dansteater, a contemporary dance company based in Sweden. After undergoing three comprehensive rounds of revisions and refinements, the current version was completed in 2023 and subsequently received the prestigious Seoul Arts Award, which recognizes outstanding artistic works supported by the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture.
