KNCDC launches online stretching tutorials, ‘Flexible Day’

The Korea National Contemporary Dance Company’s home-training series, “Flexible Day,” kicked off with the first episode streaming Wednesday on KNCDC’s YouTube channel.

“Flexible Day” is part of the online project “Dance on Air” by the KNCDC, which aims to show contemporary dance to the audience at home. Episodes of “Flexible Day” will be uploaded on YouTube and Naver TV every Wednesday and Friday for five weeks.

Artistic director Nam Jeong-ho will feature in the Wednesday episodes under the title “Using the body to meet myself” and rehearsal director An Young-jun will feature in the Friday episodes with the title “Stretching you can follow at home using 100 percent of the space.”

In the first episode Wednesday, Nam, with the help of dancer Kim Young-ran, began by demonstrating how to breathe, concentrating on the navel.

“You will experience a sense of cleansing throughout your body when you concentrate on your breathing and face your body,” said Nam in the video, as she told viewers to imagine a lotus flower blooming on top of the belly button each time they breathed in.

Then Nam showed how to experience the standing process, emphasizing going from lying down to crawling and finally standing up.

The last lesson of the day was to move as one pleased. Nam and Kim walked, crawled and lied down in the video, as Nam suggested moving one’s head around like an insect or moving to feel the space. Fortunately, these moves can be done at home where no one is watching.

“With my 35 years of experience teaching contemporary dance to diverse people, I wanted to help the public get ‘life energy’ by moving their own body,” said Nam. “Through ‘Flexible Day’ I hope people can experience ‘perfect time when body and mind come together’ and get comfort in everyday life.”

Many contemporary dance performances will also be available throughout May and June as part of “Dance on Air.”

The first performance, “Thoroughly Desperately,” was available for 48 hours last week on YouTube. The second performance, “Immixture,” can be viewed starting at 6 p.m. on Friday for 48 hours. The uploaded shows are recordings of previous performances. Performances to follow are “0g” and “The Longest Distance Between Two Points.”

“Beyond Black,” the newest performance whose April performance was canceled due to the spread of COVID-19, will be shown for the first time on June 26 at Naver Performance TV and on June 27 on YouTube. The performance received much attention with artificial intelligence-produced movements, living up to the name “contemporary.”

The “Dance on Air” series also includes the monthly “Dancing Lecture Hall,” where different speakers lecture on this year’s topic, “Contemporary dance, art that communicates with the era.”

The first lecture, “Artistic Imagination” by professor Oh Jong-woo of Sungkyunkwan University, will be available online on YouTube on May 20.

The “Dance on Air” continues KNCDC’s attempts to communicate online, with “The Rite of Spring” and individual dance videos by 25 dancers of the KNCDC dancing at home uploaded in April on KNCDC’s YouTube Channel.

By Lim Jang-won (ljw@heraldcorp.com)