A sonic dialogue between cello and electronics. This year’s K-Music Festival opens with a groundbreaking performance featuring Korean cellist and composer Okkyung Lee, known for her genre-defying style, creating vast sonic landscapes that move freely through noise, jazz, Western classical, and her homeland’s traditional and popular music. For the acclaimed festival’s opening night, Okkyung Lee … [Read More]
Category: Festivals (page 3)
Korean club music at SXSW London
At LKL, we’ve been vaguely aware of the existence of the SXSW festival in Texas largely because of the occasional Korean indie artist whose CV includes appearances there. For the very first London edition of SXSW there seems to be a very different vibe, with an evening of electronic club music in Brick Lane curated … [Read More]
Korean films at SXSW London
The organisers of the first London edition of the SXSW festival have done a great job in securing some enticing Korean movies – including two UK premieres and a world premiere – and scheduling them so that you can get to see them all. Here’s hoping there are sufficient interesting movies left for the festivals … [Read More]
Han Collection x Icheon Ceramic for London Craft Week 2025
Han Collection is proudly partnering with Icheon Ceramic to bring Korean works of art of exceptional quality to the UK. Icheon is a small city to the south-east of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Since 2010, it has been designated as a UNESCO City for Arts and Folk Art. It is home to over … [Read More]
Korean crafts at London Craft Week 2025
London Craft Week runs from 12 to 18 May. It’s a great opportunity to meet with some of the finest makers around and appreciate their craft. This year you can visit the V+A on 13 May to see horsehair weaver Dahye Jeong demonstrate her craft. In addition, two exhibitions displaying traditional and contemporary Korean crafts … [Read More]
Korean performers at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival and Fringe
The Edinburgh International Festival has announced its programme for 2025, and the Fringe website is up and running with their acts. Below are the performers with Korean connections that we’ve managed to identify so far. We’ll update this post if we discover more productions – it’s likely that this is not a complete list. 1. … [Read More]
Ilrhan Kim’s “Edhi Alice” closes 2025 Queer East festival
In Edhi Alice (에디 앨리스, 2024), director and queer activist Ilrhan Kim interrogates how documentaries about trans communities are made: the creative decisions, relationships, and ethical questions involved. The subject of the documentary is Edhi, who works as a counsellor for LGBTQ+ teens in Seoul, and has decided to undertake gender reassignment surgery. Edhi’s story intertwines … [Read More]
Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet – the perfect opening to BFI Flare 2025
BFI Flare launched yesterday with a humdinger of an opening movie: Andrew Ahn’s reimagining of Ang Lee’s 1993 The Wedding Banquet. Ahn’s partner in creating this update, James Schamus, also co-wrote Ang Lee’s version. While the original film features a single gay couple and a marriage of convenience, the reboot has two gay couples, which … [Read More]
Festival of Korean Dance 2025 – programme details announced
Here’s the official press release for the 2025 Festival of Korean dance. This year, in addition to performances at The Place in London, the festival tours to Bournemouth, Salford and Newcastle. A Festival of Korean Dance returns for its eighth year with 17-strong ensemble headliner and a live rock band Presented by the Korean Cultural … [Read More]
K-Dance 2025 on tour to Bournemouth, Salford and Newcastle
The 2025 Festival of Korean Dance visits three venues outside of London: the double bill Kontemporary Korea visits Bournemouth (9 May) and Newcastle (15 May), while Ham:beth by Modern Table visits Salford (20 May). Modern Table’s programme is identical to their performance at the Place (programme details here), but the Kontemporary Korea programme is different … [Read More]
K-Dance 2025: Ham:beth by Modern Table
Boy-band meets Shakespearean drama in this energetic all-male show by Modern Table. Seven dancers in slick suits battle against the pressure to conform. Claiming their right to desire, their quests push them into becoming lone heroes. Loosely inspired by depictions of madness in Hamlet and Macbeth, Ham:beth combines traditional Korean songs with a live rock … [Read More]
K-Dance 2025: Kontemporary Korea: A Double Bill of K:Dance
Kontemporary Korea is a showcase of two of the freshest new voices in K-dance, each finding inspiration and play in the balance between the mundane and the virtuosic. The event will be followed by a post-show discussion. 0g (zero grams) by Melancholy Dance Company Inspired by the repetitive and seemingly pointless actions of the mythical figure Sisyphus, 0g utilises the … [Read More]
K-Dance Seminar – Choreographic Humour: Korean-British Connections and Divergences
How does humour function in contemporary choreography? What comic affinities might there be between Korean and British choreographers, and how do their approaches differ? This seminar brings together artists featured in A Festival of Korean Dancein recent years with UK-based artists affiliated with The Place, for a discussion around dance’s potential to transform the conventions … [Read More]
K-Dance 2025: Jungle by Korea National Contemporary Dance Company
Amid the chaos we create order. Jungle is our life. A seventeen-strong company gathers onstage for an extraordinary spectacle of vitality. Based on ‘Process Init’, an unconventional movement research method developed by Korea National Contemporary Dance Company’s artistic director Sung-young Kim, Jungle is full of wildly instinctive movements which expand and unfurl, rich with the energy of survival. The dancers embody … [Read More]
Korean films at BFI Flare 2025
This year at BFI Flare we have three films by Korean directors and one by a Korean American. The latter – The Wedding Banquet by director Andrew Ahn – has been chosen to open the festival and includes Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung among the cast. Londoners were introduced to Andrew Ahn’s work at Queer East last … [Read More]
Korean crafts at Collect 2025
As spring approaches, Collect — the leading international art fair for contemporary craft and design — looks forward to welcoming visitors to the stunning neo-classical rooms of Somerset House in central London, for a five-day celebration of international contemporary craft and design. Presented by Crafts Council, and recognised as being at the forefront of the … [Read More]