South Korean Choreographers Collaborate with Khambatta Dance Festival at Seattle International Dance Festival Winter Mini-Fest

Seattle-based Khambatta Dance Company collaborates with South Korean dance companies Braveman and Unplugged Bodies at the 3rd Annual Seattle International Dance Festival (SIDF) Winter Mini-Fest. Choreographers Jaewoo Jung, Kyoung-Shin Kim and Cyrus Khambatta will unite elements of their collective dance backgrounds to present four emotionally charged performances over two weekends. The four-performance festival ends with a new piece produced in just six days. This highly anticipated premiere is a rewarding experience for all involved and one of the signature components of SIDF.

SIDF's managing director Connie Villines elaborates, "Our partnership with the renowned 92nd Street Y in NYC has allowed us to bring these two rising South Korean contemporary dance stars to Seattle. We know Khambatta Dance Company, as well as the entire arts-loving community will benefit from this year's artistic collaboration. SIDF is committed to bringing international talent to help nurture our local dance ecosystem."

Advance tickets to all performances are $23. Student and senior tickets are $18. Two-Show Festival Passes are available for $30. Visit www.seattleIDF.org

February 21 & 22 @ 8pm Unplugged Bodies presents Two Bodies, an intensely physical dialogue between two outstanding performers. It depicts human nature and relationships through movement and objects, revealing the strong and the weak, the desire to dominate, and a primal need inside of each human. Khambatta Dance Company presents a new work, Crowd Control, inspired by growing human movements responding to restrictive social policies around the world. Caution tape, stretched across the theater (and out the door) as the piece progresses, restricts the dancer's physical space. The lines are drawn, as they engage with the emotional subtext of repression. Responding to the emergent nature of frustration resulting from infringement on one's personal human rights, whether in Hong Kong, the U.S. or elsewhere, the piece combines KDC's split-second timing, athletic physicality and oddly recognizable movement motifs drawn from current issues.

Khambatta Dance Company presents a reworking of its SIDF hit, Begin. Again., described by some as 'primal, fluid organic structures that seem to open and close like they were breathing.' Jaewoo Jung, dancer and artistic director of Braveman, presents his solo, Uninhabited Island. This piece reflects the process, struggles and survival of all those on the island of loneliness, in-and-out of the real world and the living. It deals with the fact of humans as lonely social animals. Additionally, the second weekend premieres an exciting and suspense-worthy, as yet untitled collaboration. It combines eight KDC and Unplugged Bodies dancers to create a new piece in just six days.

Khambatta Dance Company has called Seattle, WA its home since relocating from New York City in 2001. KDC is consistently presented throughout the west coast and abroad and has created over 35 works ranging from site-specific pieces to staged, full-length productions. KDC conducts international residencies and exchanges, actively tours nationally and abroad, and in 2006 founded the Seattle International Dance Festival. They are dedicated to producing and presenting emotionally resonant and topically relevant work with a keen eye toward expanding the audience's world view in an inclusive manner. KDC encourages constructive self-reflection through meaningful high-quality artistic work, that acknowledges the role dance can play in shaping emotionally relevant lives and a strong social fabric.

Unplugged Bodies, led by choreographer Kyoung Shin Kim, was established in 2014 and has been actively interacting with choreographers from Korea and abroad. They constantly explore movements through collaborations with various artists and communicate with the audience through such movements and symbolically significant works. Kim has danced in London since 2005, worked for Hofesh Shechter Company, Diversions Dance Company in Wales, England, and Russell Maliphant Company.

Jaewoo Jung, the artistic director of Braveman is known for his refined choreography, that features youthfully vigorous, powerful, and energetic movements. He has presented work at festivals and venues around the world including New York 92Y Harkness Dance Center Dig Dance Series, Israel Suzanne Dellal Korea Festival, Hungary Monotanc Festival, Bulgaria Water festival for contemporary arts, Seoul International Dance Festival (SIDance), Seoul International Choreography festival (SCF), Modern Dance Festival Seoul (MODAFE) and more. Jung also dances with the internationally renowned Bereishit Dance Company based in Seoul, Korea.

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