<Madame Yuki> depicts a second-generation Japanese woman born in Joseon during the Japanese colonial period. Yuki was smitten with and believed in the Naeseon Ilche thought, or the “Korea and Japan are One” policy. She returned to Joseon after studying in Japan. She really loved Joseon, her home country, and believed that the Japanese and Koreans were equal. As time went by, however, she herself witnessed discrimination against Koreans and contradiction of Naeseon Ilche thought. Against this backdrop, she began to doubt her convictions and identity through the large-scale anti-Japanese movement in Gwangju. She eventually realized that she was neither Korean nor Japanese, but living in the boundary between them.

Oh Min-seok, Seong Yeol-seok, Tae Hang-ho, Jeon Jae-hyung, Park Sang-don, Kang Song-i, Jeon Hyeon-ji, Lee Hye-yeon, Lee Do-yeon, Jeong Eun-young

<The Rooms> was inspired by “The First Soul” among prize-winning entries in the ACC Asia Story Contest. Concepts of humans, goods, and subjects cannot be separated from each other in urban culture. As a consumer in the process of purchasing and discarding goods in the city, it is sometimes obscure whether we are the subject of consumption or goods themselves.

Starting with the question, “What is a subjective human?,” the work tries to interpret the moment of choice between the unconscious “impulse” of emotions hidden inside a human and the rational “control” for the continuous relationships through physical movements.

Performers on the stage turn viewers into participants in the show. With the island-type stage built in the center of the performance hall, the show is directed for viewers to concentrate on the changing bodies and senses of performers, destroying boundaries between inside and outside through immersive sound and various objects.

Spend time together conflicted beyond the transfer and expansion of the senses through the experience and agonizing over the “self.”

Dancers Kim Yu-jin, Kim Min-kyung, Moon Joo-hyun, Jeong Jeong-woon, Kim Young-chae
Band Kim Min-ho, Bae Jin-hyuk, Jeon Samuel, Kim Jae-woo

The show is set in a future society where having a child through an artificial womb is a widespread practice. Alice, a hardworking and sensitive protagonist, is situated at the heart of the surrogate mother industry that provides a womb to meet the needs of affluent romanticists. As her story starts in a space called the “theater” and in a time called “drama,” her unfamiliar life to audiences feuds with their emotions and slips into theatricality. Through the experimental narrative, we seek an answer to the question: Is human dignity that cannot be surrogated even possible amidst the brutal inequality in the international division of labor?

Kim Hyun-bin, Moon Byeong-ju, Lee Mi-ra, Lee So-seon, Lee Ji-min, Jo Ui-jin, Hong Soo-jeong

As Kim Jae-hoon began to serve as a playwright for the ACC Theater Residency Program, he agonized and pondered over the universal identity of a theater defined by modern society:

“For whom does the theater exist and what is it for?”
“If it is for performance, where is the boundary between performance and non-performance?”
“What kind of people can stand on the stage?”

The work features collaborating with the garbage collectors he met at the ACC as the first theme of his performance and the story of an actor born in Gwangju as the second theme. Consequently, they became an example that expanded the answer to these questions. The first and second themes are intertwined as warp and weft and are performed as one through a “sonata” mixed with his music.

<Theater 1>, a sonata created by Kim Jae-hoon with people he met at Theater 1 of the ACC in 2023

Kim Young-sook, Kim Jae-hoon, Kim Jeong-ah, Kim Jeong-hee, Na Kyung-min, Jeong Myeong-ok, Jo Geum-sook, Choi Yul