Living in the Moment with Eternal NOW

BAM, Brooklyn Academy of Music, America's Oldest Performing Arts Center, is about to present (June 19th­22nd, 2014 ), at BAM Fisher, the world premiere of Eternal NOW the latest work of Korean choreographer Young Soon Kim and the company WHITE WAVE DANCE.

Italian composer Marco Cappelli

Young Soon Kim is one of the most renowned choreographers Korea has ever produced. Born in Kwang Ju, Korea, Kim came to the United States in 1977 at the invitation of the Martha Graham School.

Kim danced with Jennifer Muller /The Works (1980­1984), Pearl Lang and Joyce Trisler Companies, among others. Kim also studied with Louis Falco, Lynn Simonson, Zvi Gotheiner, Lar Lubavitch, Twyla Tharp and Martha Myers. She formed WHITE WAVE in 1988.

Presenting audiences with visually provocative, intimate, and undeniably beautiful movement,
Eternal NOW reveals the secret longings of utterly human stories. A work of vision and movement language that reaches into the imagination, passion, and spirit, each piece perpetually affirms the now, in space and time, while exploring the turbulence of human emotions.

“What we are feeling at the very moment of now is unknown territory. We as human beings are constantly struck by the turbulence of human emotion, which mostly comes from the past or the future. This piece is about facing NOW with a sense of hope and possibility,” Young Soon Kim has said about her work.

Eternal NOW is also reuniting Young Soon Kim’s fluid and intertwining dramatic movement with longtime collaborator, Italian composer Marco Cappelli, who will perform an original score live, as dancers interact with scenes of lusciously composed images and edited footage by video artist, Kate Freer, playing on wide screen monitors.

“I will be in a corner on stage, sitting in an area that looks like the cockpit of an airplane,
surrounded by little lights, cables and instruments and I will play, reading what the dancers do,”

Marco Cappelli told us. The collaboration between the composer and Kim started back in 2009. “I often travel to Korea for work and I have met many musicians and composers. One of them, Kyoung Kim, introduced me to Young Soon Kim, because she was based, as I am, in New York City. It was easier for us to collaborate than for him who lived so far away. The show they are presenting now is the third of a series, and I composed music for the previous two as well: So Long for Now and Here and Now.”

We immediately realize that the common thread between the shows is the word NOW. “Yes,”
Marco explained, “and that is captured on stage by the immediacy of the music and the space
given to improvisation. Believe me, there is a well structured frame where we, and by we I mean me, the dancers and the video artist, have room to improvise. As far as I am concerned, I get to read movement as if I were reading a sheet of music. I am very interested in the relation between composition and improvisation and Young Soon Kim shares the same interest, that's why working together is really ideal. At the very beginning dancers are left to totally improvise, she wants to see what they come up with. Then they are guided by her and I let myself be guided to. It all comes together.”

Marco Cappelli will be playing different instruments: the guitar, keyboards and the uboingee, an instrument that only two people have in the world and M is one of them! “The Uboingee is a guitar with springs,” Marco explained, “It looks like it belongs in a sci­fi movie and it can be used both as a guitar and as percussion, which is great for the dancers. It was created by Mark Stewart, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's guitarist and artistic director, who happens to be also an inventor of instruments. I will also play with some sound effects and make it all incredibly engaging.”

Eternal NOW runs June 19 ­ 21, Thursday ­ Saturday at 7:30 PM.
BAM Fisher is located at 321 Ashland Place, Brooklyn NY 11217. For information and
reservations call 718­855­8822 or visit BAM.org.