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Brief Fringe review: Mind Goblin

Mind Goblin
Mind Goblin is a mysterious half-hour solo accompanied by a quiet, watery soundtrack. Sometimes serene, sometimes descending into madness, the solitary dancer / choreographer Lee Kyung-eun manages to retain our attention throughout the piece despite the lack of obvious rhythm to the music.

The most striking moment comes when the soloist coughs up black liquid – presumably the climax of the shamanistic exorcism implied by the programme text:

Meet the goblin in your mind and appreciate the other “me” inside you.

Mind-Goblin reveals the sense of negativity, desire, destruction and deviation of the goblins that settle within our minds. By dancing with them, the piece encourages us to accept them as part of ourselves, and reflect on our innate beauty as we are.

In the performance, identifying the foolish spirit of this confusing world as a goblin, we perform a traditional shamanism ritual for chasing away an evil and harmful spirit. Lee Kyung-eun sets up a stage for the goblins in her mind and body. She confronts and comes to appreciate the other “me” inside her just like in the old stories, where people met goblins and danced all night. She comes to understand herself – mind and body – as a universe unto itself and to fully appreciate the beauty of the diversity coexisting in and creating that universe.

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