Seattle International Dance Festival 2025_ MMDC

2025 Seattle International Dance Festival 🔸 Hanji Soul – where choreography meets light and the delicate textures of traditional hanji paper ——— ✧ Hanji Soul – The Dance of Breathing Paper Hanji is a traditional Korean paper made from the inner bark of the mulberry tree—delicate yet remarkably strong. It breathes, stretches, endures, and remembers. In Hanji Soul, the stage transforms into a dreamlike landscape of living paper. Inspired by my own hanji mixed media artworks, the textures of layered paper, fiber, and resin are reimagined as a visual environment through projection. The immersive animated backdrop, created in collaboration with SUS Studio, brings the fibers and surfaces of hanji to life, while handcrafted hanji lanterns illuminate the space like breathing vessels. Each movement becomes an echo of hanji’s resilience—soft, yet never fragile. The choreography is rooted in the movement language influenced by Martha Graham’s technique, exploring breath, weight, and emotional intention through the body. At the same time, it embraces the circular flow and breath-centered qualities of Korean traditional dance, creating a dialogue between Western modern dance and Eastern aesthetics. In this work, hanji becomes more than a material. It becomes a body, a memory, and a spirit moving through time. “Hanji may appear delicate, but it protects against the wind, embraces the passage of time, and carries the traces of the soul.”