Ghost Day: City Night
Showtimes
Tuesday ~ Wednesday (20:00)
Cast
Jo Han-jin, Seon Eun-ji, Lee Hye-jun, Seong Ju-hyeon, Oh Pu-reum, Park Cheol-sun, Heo Mi-so, etc.
Creative Team
Kim Ju-bin, Kim Ye-na, Lee Hye-jun, etc.
Synopsis
[Performance Introduction] Halloween existed in Korea, too! In the city night, humans, ghosts, and office workers mingle. Where tradition meets contemporary circus The most Korean fantasy dance drama. Ganggangsullae, Notdaribalgi, Shamanism, and the city night. The new birth of a Korean-style Halloween. #Halloween #Korea #GhostDay #DanceDrama #CityNight #SunAndMoon #LifeOfAnOfficeWorker Work Description <Ghost Day: City Night> is a large-scale original dance drama that begins with the imagination that “Halloween existed in Korea, too.” It is an evolved reinterpretation that expands the worldview of <Ghost Day>, which premiered in 2023, into the heart of today’s city. Based on the breath and sentiment of Korean dance, it combines the body language of European-style contemporary circus to propose a new performance aesthetic where tradition and contemporaneity coexist. While the premiere presented a festive spectacle of "Korean Halloween" where ghosts and humans mingled, this production intertwines the life of an office worker navigating a modern city with the narrative of the brother and sister and the tiger from the traditional Korean fairy tale "The Sun and the Moon," expanding the motif of "looking back at the living through the dead" with greater intensity. Communal movements derived from Ganggangsullae and Notdaribalgi, a three-dimensional stage spanning the air and ground, and music that blends traditional percussion with electronic sounds create a ritualistic space that transcends the boundaries between reality and unreality, and between humans and ghosts. <Ghost Day: City Night> aims to strengthen the density of narrative and emotion rather than expand the scale. Going beyond a mere spectacle-centered circus, it deeply captures the emotions and relationships experienced by today's city dwellers—such as overwork, isolation, anxiety, and recovery—presenting a "Korean-style Halloween" stage that poses the question to the audience: "Are we truly living life, or are we merely surviving it?" Synopsis Where do ghosts live? People who go to work, come home, and then disappear again. In the midst of a repetitive daily routine, modern people are increasingly resembling ghosts. People who are alive yet empty, Beings that have vanished but are actually more human. In the city night, invisible beings awaken. Ghosts who survived by hiding in forests and cabins evade humans, connecting their respective worlds, while the disconnected people of the city cut across the hellish subway with expressionless faces. Through the gaps, maiden ghosts and bachelor ghosts emerge, and the boundary between humans and ghosts becomes increasingly blurred. Meanwhile, the story of "The Sun and the Moon" from ancient folktales descends into today's city. The tiger is no longer a mere monster. It is reborn as a being who once desired to satisfy hunger and survive, and who simply had to live out its life as a tiger. The story of the brother and sister and the tiger is reinterpreted through the faces of today's office workers, crowds, fear, and desire, blurring the boundaries between victim and perpetrator, and between human and ghost. The ghosts passed down from the past are rearranged into new faces within the city's night. The eyeball ghost that used to peek at people becomes a CCTV monitoring alleys and buildings, and the succubus ghost that used to lure people into dreams is transformed into a water ghost harboring a fear of water and accidents. The Dokkaebi remains a playful being, but it appears as an energy that dwells in neon signs, billboards, machinery, and objects, wreaking havoc throughout the city. The bandage ghost, the Chang-gui, the maiden ghost, and the Grim Reaper combine with images within today's urban landscape, and are reborn as contemporary ghosts that are both familiar and unfamiliar. Ultimately, the city's night becomes a single ritual where everyone harmonizes together. Amidst movements originating from Ganggangsullae and Notdaribalgi, humans step over and connect with one another's bodies, transcending severed relationships and isolated emotions. Heaven and earth, the living and the dead, humans and ghosts. On that boundary, we ask: Are we truly alive now, or are we already becoming ghosts? Director's Intent Through *Ghost Day*, which premiered in 2023, Kim Joo-bin attempted a modern reinterpretation utilizing Korean subject matter and dance methods; notably for a private organization, she completed a large-scale production with approximately 70 participants. At the time, amidst the trend of "deconstruction" prevalent throughout the Korean dance scene, the work was an experiment that reassembled the language of the body and dance, and re-examined the distinction between solo and group dance, and the form and function of dance from the very beginning. It focuses on the solo dance as a single sentence uttered by a single body, and the collective energy possessed as that sentence expands into a group dance comprising two, three, or many people. Based on these formal experiments, *Ghost Day: City Night* is a re-creation that expands the original worldview into a narrative more closely aligned with today's urban reality. Placing the daily lives and emotions of modern people—who live extremely individualized lives instead of enjoying convenience within highly developed social systems in the AI era—at the forefront, it poses the fundamental question: "Are we living life right now, or are we merely surviving it?" Based on the fundamental methods of Korean dance—rhythm and breath—and the explosive energy within restrained movements, Kim Joo-bin three-dimensionally overlaps the senses of the individual and the collective, humans and ghosts, and the past and the present on stage through a structure where solos and group dances intersect. Aerial movements function not merely as a technical spectacle, but as a metaphor for emotion; The dancer's body becomes a living medium connecting the community and the world, and the living and the dead. The directorial and choreographic intent is clear. By bringing back the beings from past folktales and ghost legends, into the faces of today's urban landscapes, office workers, and crowds, the aim is to shake the boundaries between humans and ghosts, and between victims and perpetrators. Through this, the hope is that each audience member will confront the faces of their own daily lives, fears, and desires, on stage, and gain the small courage to tell their own stories to someone after the performance. **Planning Intent** JUBIN Company is an organization that has explored "open Koreanness" through the body, centering on the breath and sentiment of Korean dance while combining contemporary sensibilities with various genres such as circus and theater. In an era of extreme individualization where relationships and a sense of community are weakening amidst convenience, *Ghost Day: Night in the City* begins with the question, “How can we live by leaning on each other again?” Through communal movements derived from *Ganggangsullae* and *Notdaribalgi*, a structure where solos and group dances intersect, and circus-like bodies traversing the air and the ground, the dancers’ bodies transcend the isolated individual functioning as a medium to collectively bear each other’s weight. *Ghost Day: Night in the City* is a Korean-style creative repertoire that intersects invisible beings with visible daily life, ghosts with humans, and folktales of the past with the urban reality of the present on a single stage, and explores how Korean faith and bodily methods can reflect the lives of audiences living today.
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