INTERVIEW: DUMBO comes alive with dance this weekend
Photo: Ballet Hartford will perform at 2018’s DUMBO Dance Festival, sponsored by WHITE WAVE. Photo courtesy of Ian Christmann / Provided with permission by Michelle Tabnick PR.
DUMBO, the trendy neighborhood between the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge in the cool borough across the river from Manhattan, has established itself as a force to be reckoned with on the arts scene. Whether it’s theatrical presentations at St. Ann’s Warehouse, musical offerings at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, experimental theater at Theater Mitu in Gowanus or the myriad other entertainment offerings, Brooklyn’s arts scene is vibrant and nonstop.
Case in point: this weekend’s DUMBO Dance Festival hosted by WHITE WAVE. From Oct. 11 to 14, dozens of dance companies from New York City and around the world will descend upon the neighborhood and offer creative performances to audiences at the Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center on Jay Street.
At the center of WHITE WAVE, the presenting dance company, is artistic director Young Soon Kim. She founded the company in 1988 and focuses her working on celebrating both the modern and timeless aspects of the dance medium. Her DUMBO Dance Festival has been going strong for 17 years and has continually offered up-and-coming choreographers a chance in the spotlight.
Recently, Kim exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox about what fans can expect this weekend. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How do you find these dance makers from the around the world?
Our annual DUMBO Dance Festival application released in February via email and through social media to our 13,500 subscribers and Facebook followers. Application will be also available online at [many] sites. …
When considering contributors for the performance, what are some of the criteria that you’re looking for?
Our DUMBO Dance Festival’s mission is to present and promote young rising choreographers, uniquely enhancing NYC’s cultural life, especially in Brooklyn. WHITE WAVE created DDF in 2001 in response to the dance community’s need for performance opportunities that would not only present, but also produce, the work of rising choreographers at minimal expense for the artist. The festival is now recognized as New York’s most prestigious gathering of pioneering choreography, encouraging experimentation, creativity and originality. Our eight to 10 member jury evaluate applicants for skill, innovation and coherent artistic vision. Seeking local and international groups, especially the most original nascent companies.
What can fans expect at this year’s festival?
Our 2018 goal, as per feedback, is for our growing audience to develop their appreciation of highly artistic and inspiring dance. WHITE WAVE seeks to engage and expand its diverse audience demographic at each performance. In our mission to express the universality of human experience, the company serves all racial, ethnic, gender and age groups. We believe in intercultural appreciation and participation of dance to the constituent audience, including: art lovers of all ages, classes, cultural backgrounds across the NY Metropolitan Area and local/international tourists.
Our DUMBO Dance Festival (DDF) is committed to developing dance as an important art form. WHITE WAVE scours the globe in search of the most innovative of today’s dance makers, both emerging and established, and brings them to Brooklyn for one extended weekend of 11 different programs. For four nights and three days, dance lovers will experience a veritable cornucopia of the best of contemporary dance. DDF is committed to advancing the best of dance by providing on-stage and behind-the-scene opportunities for 70 dance troupes from across America and around the globe, allowing audiences to experience, first-hand, the incomparable vitality of the New York dance scene.
When did you first fall in love with dance?
I started [to] fall in love with dance when I was 6 years old. One day I heard sound of drum (Gang-go). There was a small dance studio near my house in Gwangju, Korea, and I went in and watched whole hour. After that I went there every afternoon to watch. After three days, [the] teacher came to me and asked me, ‘Do you like dance?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you like to learn?’ I said, ‘Yes!’ That’s how it started.
When I left Korea in 1977 to New York to study dance (with Martha Graham student visa), at the airport my grandmother told me, ‘To be a dancer was your mother’s dream, and now you will go out to the world and make it.’ First, I learned Korean traditional dance, then few years later ballet and modern dance.
Are you excited by the contemporary dance scene in 2018?
Most definitely! There are many dance/performing arts and presenting organizations (i.e. New York Live Arts, Gibney Dance, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Movement Research, Peridance), especially for up-rising choreographers and companies to have opportunities though great programs, residency, presentations and supporting creative artists. So I am optimistic and looking forward to see more inspiring dance works.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The DUMBO Dance Festival, hosted by WHITE WAVE, will take place Oct. 11-14 at the Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center on Jay Street in Brooklyn. Click here for more information and tickets.
