East 15 forges link with Korean Theatre Company
East 15 forges links with Korean Cho-In Theatre Company
East 15 Head of BA Physical Theatre, James Sutherland, has just returned from a hugely successful trip to Korea where he was invited to work with the Cho-In Theatre Company.
Cho-In was founded as a physical theatre company to transcend the limits of verbal language imposes on audiences. Using a blend of traditional and contemporary physical styles they aim to bring audiences together to share those universal traits that make us human irrespective of nationality, race or culture.
The roots of the company go back to 1998 when Chung-euy Park created a 40 minute show entirely without words (The Train). This was expanded to a full length show in 2002 and since then the company has created two further shows The Angel and the Woodcutter (2006) and Hotel Splendid (2008). The company is not only hugely respected in Korea, where it performs regularly, but has also been invited to perform in festivals and art centre around the world such as Avignon, Dubai and Edinburgh.
James had been invited by the company to share some of the physical styles taught and developed on the BA Physical Theatre course at East 15. These include exploring dramatic space, play and replay through improvisation, movement analysis, musical scale transferred to movement, Neutral mask and clowning.
Although the project had been planned to be a one-off, the sharing of creative ideas proved so successful that it has now developed into an on-going plan for collaboration with the company and proposals are being explored for possible guest tutoring with other performing arts departments at various universities.
James found the project hugely rewarding and explained; “ I wouldn’t have had the opportunity if I wasn’t working for East 15. It is thanks to the school and the course’s growing reputation that has enabled us to sow the seeds for this on-going work. We hope that it will also lead to some of our students also having the opportunity to work with the company.”
