National Contemporary Dance Company returns to the body in the AI age — Cha Jin-yup's 'Bodying' manifesto

"I found myself turning the three words — 'national,' 'contemporary,' 'dance' — over and over in my mind. What does 'national' mean? What does 'contemporary' mean? And given all that, what can dance do right now? That is where I started."

Five months into her tenure, Cha Jin-yup, 48, director and artistic director of the National Contemporary Dance Company, spoke Wednesday at the company's rehearsal hall at Seoul Arts Center in Seocho-gu, Seoul, in her first press briefing since taking office. Her three-year vision for the company begins not with a program but with a question about the essence of words.

The three pillars she has drawn from those words are "Korean identity, contemporaneity, and the essence of the body." For Cha, Korean identity is not the reproduction of traditional forms but the sensibility and attitude accumulated in the body through the time, lives, history and environment of this land. Exploring the contemporary means examining the time and relationships that have shaped the present. Contemporary dance, in her definition, is not a genre confined to a particular style but an art that uses the body to investigate humanity, society and the world.

After long deliberation, Cha arrived at a core concept: "Bodying." The word attaches the progressive suffix "-ing" to the noun "body." It is a declaration that the body is not a finished physical entity or a fixed object but a process — one constantly being formed and transformed through its relationships with the environment and with others.

"What I came to understand as a creator exploring movement was that the changes in my body happen ceaselessly within every condition — the environment and other people," Cha said. The body, in her view, is not merely an "instrument of expression" to be trained and placed on stage; it is a subject that thinks, remembers and forms relationships with others. "The body is not a means of expression — it is a being that asks questions," she said.

In an era when AI writes and paints, and physical robots are advancing rapidly to take over human physical tasks, the value of the body and of movement is being read differently. That is why Cha has placed "Bodying" at the center of her vision. Her diagnosis is that the events of society do not remain abstract ideas — they ultimately reach the body. At a time when bodily sensation is growing faint, she said, it falls to the National Contemporary Dance Company to "read humanity and the age through the body."

Cha outlined four practical directions for putting this philosophy into action: Bodying — looking at the body anew; Thinking — thinking through the body; Placing — sensing the place where one stands; and Erroring — responding to unpredictable change.

The thinking behind "Bodying" is compressed into a single sentence: "No Body Moves Alone."

That sentence grew out of the self-awareness Cha gained over more than 20 years on stage as a choreographer and dancer. "Every being is connected and coexisting," she said. In an age of every-person-for-themselves and disconnection, the sentence carries an ethics that goes beyond the principles of dance — it asks how we are to live together.

"I want to ask, through the body, how we who are living here and now can coexist together," Cha said, describing her vision. She plans to create conditions in which choreographers and dancers can question, experiment and debate fully, while opening wider channels for audiences to experience the body and dance in depth. Her mission statement — "Ask the age through the body, move people and the world through dance" — and her vision of "a creative community cultivated together" reflect the same thinking.

That philosophy translates into a shift in how work is made. "Errorist," set to premiere in June next year, is a production project that treats the uncertainty and trial and error encountered during the creative process as the engine of exploration. The final form and creative method are not fixed in advance; instead, discoveries made along the way are refined into a finished performance for audiences.

"I want to create an environment where we can push experimentation all the way to uncharted territory — even at the risk of failure — and arrive at works in entirely new forms," Cha said.

A new base will also support the thinking that precedes creation. The CTP Lab (Choreographic Thinking and Practice Lab) will operate year-round starting next year, centered on Dance House in Seocho-dong, where choreographers and fellows from different academic and artistic disciplines will gather to research and debate questions. The intent is to place real weight on the process of questioning and exploring before a work takes shape. That process will be documented in writing, video, performance and workshops, and accumulated as assets of the company.

Cha was candid about the fact that the company, now in its 16th year, has not built up its assets as it should have. "There have been many fine works and meaningful discourses over the years, but every time a director changed, continuity was lost and the organization's identity became somewhat thin," she said. "Rather than simply churning out new things one after another, I am determined to steadily build up the history of Korean contemporary dance and give the company real depth."

The National Contemporary Dance Company intends to firmly establish its identity as a public platform — one cultivated together. That sets it apart from the recent trend in the dance world of inviting celebrated foreign companies and choreographers to broaden popular appeal and expand audiences.

"Bringing in famous big names would make it easy to fill seats right away, but the National Contemporary Dance Company is not a revenue-generating organization," Cha said. "Even I, during my years as a working choreographer, sometimes felt a kind of deprivation watching performances by overseas masters."

She went on to say that "even if it takes time, it is our public responsibility to lay the groundwork through our company's platform so that outstanding Korean choreographers and dancers can grow into world-class big names." Her direction is clear: the company's role extends from discovering and nurturing talented creators to presenting their work on the world stage.

The company takes its first step in December, with Cha's site-specific performance "Being Being Bing" at Consolation Hall of the Seosomun Shrine History Museum on Dec. 11 and 12. An extension of the series "Circling Body," which she has continued since 2020, the work uses the body of the present to sense the absence of those who have disappeared and to respond to their memory.

In April next year, the company will present the first installment of a new series, "Body·Mold·Flesh: Not Yet Dry," at the CJ Towol Theater at Seoul Arts Center from April 9 to 11. Starting from the act of repeatedly applying soybean oil to a hanji floor to build and tend it, the work asks how different bodies and forms of labor sustain one another's lives. Cha will account for roughly 20 to 25 percent of the choreography herself, with the rest balanced through collaborations with Korean creators — including a guest performance by choreographer Lee Yang-hee scheduled for July next year.

In August next year, the company will hold five sessions of "Bodying/Bodying," a discourse and participation program that examines the body through the lenses of philosophy, science, art and technology. "It is a program designed to help the general public approach contemporary dance in a variety of ways," Cha said.

"Rather than being impatient about numerical results, I want to breathe more deeply with the artists in the field," Cha said. "I will walk carefully, one step at a time, toward making the National Contemporary Dance Company an organization that constantly asks and talks about what questions it can pose to this age."