'Ballet Arirang' Without a Single Note of Arirang: Choi Su-jin and Lee Ru-da Dance Beyond Despair [Interview]

Against a geomungo melody that surges like deep blue waves, bodies move through gestures of frustration. They push forward only to be blocked, reach beyond only to find a wall. They collapse, fall, and yet lean on one another to rise again. The dance speaks of despair without dwelling in tragedy, building into a breathless, explosive ensemble that pulses with raw energy. Individual emotion expands into collective force, and what had been submerged is finally, fully released.

Two choreographers of distinctly different sensibilities have come together in a single work — each bringing their own voice while sharing one stage. "Ballet Arirang" is the commissioned centerpiece of the 16th Korea Ballet Festival. Not a single phrase of the traditional folk song is heard throughout the performance, nor any trace of its mournful melody. In place of that familiar tune stands something else entirely: the despair of confronting an immovable wall, and the desperate struggle of people who band together to break it down. Over six months of intense creative work, two star choreographers — Lee Ru-da and Choi Su-jin, both born in 1985 — have translated the spirit and message of Arirang into the language of the body.

The work's creative structure is unusual. A single piece is divided into two acts, each choreographed by one of the two artists. Meeting Lee at the first rehearsal ahead of the premiere, she said she had initially imagined the project differently. "At first I thought of it as two separate works sharing a theme — something like a double bill," she said. "Now I think of it as completely one work."

"Ballet Arirang" was directed and scripted by Park Hun-gyu of MUTO, an ensemble known for pairing traditional instruments with synthesizers to create contemporary theatrical soundscapes. The score was also composed by MUTO — Park Hun-gyu, Park Woo-jae, Shin Beom-ho and Hong Chan-hyeok.

This is the first time the two have divided a single work between them, each taking one act. With different artistic temperaments and separate casts, they faced a shared challenge: finding the thread that would hold it all together. It was not a simple process.

"There were originally three scripts to choose from, and 'Ballet Arirang' was the one we picked," Choi said, recounting the process. "We first met in December to talk things through, then from January each of us worked independently on casting and choreography."

Their connection goes back to middle school. The two knew each other as teenagers and later enrolled side by side at the Korea National University of Arts, watching each other grow over the years.

Choi recalled with a smile that Lee had performed in her very first choreographic work after returning from the United States — "Out of Mind" (2013), staged after Choi completed her tenure with Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet in New York (2008–2012). The loyalty ran deep: Lee appeared in her friend's debut as a choreographer. Yet the reverse never happened — Choi never performed in Lee's work, even though Lee had taken her own first choreographic steps earlier, with "Black Toe" at the New York DUMBO Dance Festival in 2010. When Choi asked why she had never been invited, Lee laughed: "You were too expensive a dancer."

The two became widely known to the public through "Dancing 9," a dance talent show on Mnet. In the decade since, they have each built a firm identity as choreographers in their respective domains. "Ballet Arirang" offers audiences a chance to see two distinct artistic voices woven into a single, complete narrative.

"My biggest concern was how far we could go as choreographers in what we express, and how to create a single coherent context with two separate casts," Lee said. Choi shared that anxiety. "In my case I was drawn to intimate solos and duets, while Ru-da was thinking about large ensemble pieces with explosive energy — so the division of parts came naturally," she explained.

The backbone of the narrative is 12 original scores that MUTO spent six months crafting. The music — geomungo and taepyeongso cutting through modular synthesizer electronics and sweeping orchestration — drives the dance on its own terms. "When I heard the music, the full dramatic arc of a grand narrative was already there," Choi said. "We each chose pieces that suited our sensibilities, and the director arranged them with great precision so that one enormous flow runs through the music from start to finish."

The percussion-driven score for Act 2, charged with explosive energy, immediately sparked Lee's imagination. "The moment I heard it, the rhythms of the janggu and the percussion just made me want to keep moving," she recalled.

Choi's "Arirang" portrays an urgency born from lives that have weathered long seasons of endurance. She interprets the han — the deep-seated sorrow — embedded in Arirang as a yearning that blooms through hardship, expressed through gestures of longing and lack. "Human beings inevitably encounter trials, pain and despair as they live," she said, "but each time, they search for another kind of hope and struggle to take one more step forward." The choreographic core, too, lies in the reinterpretation of despair.

"The word 'despair' hit me with great force, but I didn't want to leave it as mere sadness. Despair itself arises from a desperate hope, so even within despair I wanted to express a sliver of hope — a gesture that looks toward the distance and finds the will to move forward again." (Choi Su-jin)

The principal dancers who give aesthetic form to that "desperate despair" are star soloists with an average age in their 40s — among them a dancer returning from retirement and another who stepped back onto the stage not long after giving birth. Their bodies, shaped by the contours of lived experience, lend Act 1 a profound density.

"Each dancer has such a distinct personality and skill set that the biggest challenge was bringing them all into one work," Choi said. Dancers Shin Seung-won and Choi Ji-won, in particular, are performing shortly after giving birth. To reawaken their bodies, Choi personally led a one-hour barre warm-up class every day for six months before rehearsals.

"That time brought the dancers' bodies back to life and gave them a great deal of confidence. I was asking classical ballet dancers to condense energy and release it in a sudden burst, and to engage in the push-and-pull of contemporary movement where bodies intertwine and separate — and they came to carry the emotional line with a poise and stability that made it feel like a work they had rehearsed for years." (Choi Su-jin)

The first piece of choreography to take shape was a female dancer's solo, and it was here that Choi found the work's narrative. "The opening piece wasn't simply sad," she said. "It holds a sorrowful reality in which everything is consumed and absorbed into the wall — but within that, I tried to express a tenacious life force that keeps trying to rise again."

"A body that has collapsed as if it can no longer move — awakened again by someone's help, or by its own will — taking one agonizing step forward: that moment, that gesture, is what I believe true Arirang really is." (Choi Su-jin)

Where Choi's "Arirang" accumulates intimate, private despair, the "Arirang" Lee inherits is a stage of release and solidarity — a collective force that shatters the wall. Thirteen dancers from different disciplines come together for the explosive ensemble: three Korean traditional dancers, three contemporary dancers and seven ballet dancers. A towering LED wall at the center rear of the stage stands as both their inescapable fate and their adversary.

For Lee, Arirang is a process of releasing han — the accumulated grief and resentment — and letting it go. "The moment I heard MUTO's music, I intuitively thought of han-풀이, the ritual of releasing han," she said.

"I thought: we need to go somewhere like a modern-day han-풀이 party — everyone jumping together on stage, letting it all out. I wanted to create a space like a rock festival or a club, where people instinctively release and discharge their energy." (Lee Ru-da)

At the opening of Act 2, the dancers turn their backs to the audience and exhale in unison with rough, audible breaths — a moment of precise choreographic intention. "The idea was to breathe out all the despair felt in Act 1, like a long sigh, before we begin," Lee said. "I wanted to bring the deep, internal breathing of Korean traditional dance into the ballet dancers — to start from a place of full, grounded breath."

Bringing together 13 freelance dancers from different disciplines and aligning them into a single ensemble was, as Lee put it, a road as steep as the Arirang pass itself. "The Korean traditional dancers taught the others hand gestures and hand shapes, while the ballet dancers practiced the bending and yielding movements of Korean dance — they filled in each other's gaps," she said. The breathing of Korean traditional dance, the precise technique of ballet and the freedom of contemporary movement blend into what Lee describes as a transformed "ganggangsullae" — a traditional circle dance — moving toward complete release.

"I wanted to avoid the predictable, obvious Korean imagery. I hoped the movements would be unlike anything audiences had seen before — something that makes you wonder whether it's ballet or Korean traditional dance. Visually, it begins with 'black' costumes, which have always been part of my identity, and gradually shifts toward 'white' as the work moves toward hope and transcendence. In the end it returns to the color of the baegui minjok — the people of white clothing — and in that purest state I wanted to show a sal-풀이, a shedding of misfortune, as the great wall is broken down."

The two acts, strikingly different in character, flow together in seamless continuity. Both choreographers identified two elements as the primary connective tissue: the wall on stage, and soloist Choi Ji-won.

"Within the context of individual emotion gathering into collective emotion, the LED wall — present throughout the entire work — holds the whole Arirang together," Lee said. In Act 1, the dancers feel despair before the wall and are consumed by it; in Act 2, the collective energy of the group moves to overcome and shatter it. At the center of that arc stands ballerina Choi Ji-won, brought in at the suggestion of artistic director Kim Ju-won. "Choi Ji-won appears in the very first scene of Act 1 and again in the final scene of Act 2," Lee said with evident satisfaction. "That created a bookend structure — a complete circular flow."

Choi nodded in agreement. "When I watched the full run-through on Thursday, the emotional thread finally connected," she said. "Act 1 carries the unresolved feelings that any human being knows — the frustration of things not going as you wish. As you move into Act 2, all of that is boldly exposed, released and discharged. Having seen both parts together, I finally felt what we're really saying with 'Arirang.'"

The two have been colleagues and each other's most ardent admirers for more than 20 years, since their school days. Watching each other's work come together into a single piece, their eyes lit up.

"I thought her choreography had become truly solid," Choi said of Lee's work. "Interpreting every piece of music and building it movement by movement, densely and precisely — that's no ordinary feat, and Ru-da put in enormous effort." She was particularly struck by the ensemble sequences. "Watching so many dancers release their energy as if they were one body, I felt a sense of relief — that what I lacked in Act 1, she had filled in Act 2. She drew out her own distinctive movement vocabulary without breaking the foundational lines of classical ballet, and she did it brilliantly." Choi offered a round of applause.

Lee was equally effusive about Choi. "We must not forget what she has achieved," she said, paying tribute to a career forged at leading contemporary dance companies abroad. "Classical ballet dancers tend to have a narrower range of movement, and I was in awe watching Su-jin draw out such powerful release and tension from them — a real push-and-pull emerged in the dancers' performance and movement. Su-jin has made the transition from dancer to choreographer, and she still has so much more to show. She is truly in a class of her own in Korea."

The path to their respective artistic achievements has not been easy. Freelance choreographers carry the constant burden of producing high-quality work with insufficient budgets and limited infrastructure. "For freelance choreographers, just coordinating the dancers' schedules is a battle," Choi said. "In the past, I always had to perform on stage myself while choreographing, so performance days were sheer panic. This time, artistic director Kim Ju-won created an environment where I could focus entirely on choreography — it was a rare and valuable experience, truly observing and refining the dancers as a choreographer."

Lee agreed. "Choreography is work that draws on dancers' labor, time and passion, and the reality is that budgets are woefully inadequate," she said. Running her own dance company, she has long felt the strain of management and has always worn many hats — handling not only choreography but also direction, music and visuals. This production was a fundamentally different experience. "Unlike my independent projects, where I had to edit the stage direction and sound myself, this time I could focus entirely on movement and choreography. As a creator, it was genuinely fresh and joyful."

Together, the two choreographers are staging what they hope will be a festival of consolation and release. "Everyone feels despair in life, but I hope people won't stay in it — I hope they'll move their bodies, take one step forward," Choi said. "Despair comes from strong longing and hope, so I hope audiences find comfort in that positive message."

"'When our despair becomes the rhythm' — that's the tagline for this work. Just as you can't jump freely if you have nothing to release, it takes despair and pain to generate the energy to express them. Through the exhilarating movement of K-ballet, I think audiences will feel intuitively that even our most negative emotions can ultimately become a positive force that moves us." (Lee Ru-da)