Eun-Me Ahn Dance Company in Dragons
From Korea with multimedia love comes Eun-Me Ahn’s Dragons, just starting it’s UK tour.
Eun-Me Ahn’s ‘Dragons’. © Sukmu Yun
Eun-Me Ahn Dance Company
Dragons
★★✰✰✰
Southampton, Mayflower Theatre
24 February 2025
@ahneunmecompany
www.mayflower.org.uk
danceconsortium.com - 2025 UK touring
If I were rating Eun-Me Ahn’s Dragons purely on colour, then it’s a 5 star show - it’s been a long time since I saw something quite so vibrant, loud and brash. But, of course, a colourful show is not, in itself, the be-all and end-all.
Eun-Me Ahn founded her company in 1988 and, now in her 60s, is still dancing and seemingly an ever-smiling presence on stage. When she performs a solo — a very long solo in this case — it’s her smile and joy at just noodling around that comes across, but it’s sadly not enough to keep you engaged. And that feeling applies to much of the show: what you are seeing on stage is not enough to hold your attention fully for the time it runs.
The PR blurb for Dragons is encouraging: “In Asia, dragons represent resilience, joy and optimism. They are the inspiration for this multi-media spectacular, a vibrant swirling hallucinatory mix of dance, music, holograms and stylish costumes.” This is largely accurate; we are certainly not seeing dragons as we scarily understand them in the West. Instead, we see movement and design that seems to be about having a good time using a mix of high- and low-tech elements. The high tech comes from clever 3D projections that the dancers interact with, particularly effective when huge bubbles move across the stage, which the dancers trap and play with. The low-tech comes from a huge job-lot of industrial air-conditioning ducting, forming the set walls and which the dancers play with and wear in myriad different ways. Unfortunately most of this play feels uninspired and ad-hoc.
Dragons features eight live dancers (including director Ahn) and six virtual dancers, all born in Asia in the year 2000, with whom Ahn worked remotely during Covid lockdown. The integration and interaction between the live and virtual dancers works well enough, but the introduction of the six dancers, accompanied by projected bio details and a voice-over on their dance inspirations, felt tedious. So, what of the all-important movement in Dragons? Umm… it appeared to be a mash-up of contemporary, Bollywood, hip-hop, pop-video, circus tumbling, and the odd ballet lift — a huge mix, along with just hanging out and gently improvising. Most of the movement seemed focused on animating the voluminous costumes, but I couldn’t shake away the feeling that scene after scene needed a good edit. There are loads of ideas, but few are really honed and sharpened. Ultimately, I look for interesting movement and visuals, but Dragons is primarily about a colourful 80-minute show, and the visuals alone — be they high or low tech — may resonate more with you than they did with me.
Dance Consortium, who I much commend for bringing interesting dance to major theatres across the country, are touring Dragons. Next up, touring in May/June 2025, is Ballet BC with what looks to be a particularly strong contemporary double bill featuring a work by the hugely brilliant Crystal Pite. It goes without saying I’m already booked in to see it.