Gravity, Ryu and Friends
GRAVITY by Ryu and Friends © Sang Hoon Ok
Well that was just about the coolest piece of dance I’ve seen in a while.
Kicking off the Korean Dance Festival, Ryu and Friends, in their UK debut, brought their assured, experimental rave to London’s The Place. Gravity brings together acrobatics and contemporary dance (and balloons, more on them later) in a high energy work which, if anything, was impressive because of the dancer’s stamina (one hour, no interval!).
GRAVITY Ryu and Friends © Tiu Makkonen
Plunged into sudden darkness, the work opened with a piercingly bright spotlight interrogating the audience as a ball of humans in shiny black outfits unravelled on the floor to a pulsating, scatty score. Each dancer moved to the tune of their own drum: spinning, climbing on someone, jumping, rolling across the floor, extending a leg. It was at odds with the music, which stopped and started at an even pace. Did it work? It won’t be for everyone. It was certainly a playground of ideas, which was very much theme of the evening.
Gravity was choreographed by experimental Korean choreographer Jang-hyun Ryu. With a name like Gravity, one would expect the piece to look at height, with spectacular lifts. Instead, Ryu takes a more extraterrestrial approach, looking at the “relationships between all matter; the push and pull, the chaos, the harmony”, and goodness was the result good. After the chaotic opener, the dancers soon moved together into two groups, dancing in unison with fast, intricate footwork and turns, the odd dancer splitting out to launch onto the floor. Throughout the night the choreography rarely got stuck, movement consistently and continuously explored, with bodies intertwining into insect-like shapes, and at one point a man rolling off the back of another like human parkour. If I was a dance student I would have been taking copious notes for my coursework.
GRAVITY Ryu and Friends © Tiu Makkonen
And the work just kept going. First there was fire, transported in a smokey box, then there was FIRE, transported on a dancer’s head! The dancers, on top of the challenging choreography, also had multiple costume changes through dresses to barely-there underwear. And don’t think I forgot the balloons, the closest literal interpretation of Gravity and the true sci-fi moment of the piece. They were worn on heads, under dresses (then ‘birthed’) and the work ended with dancers taking turns to hold one in place, in a quiet, meditative moment to finish the work.
There was so much to take in, but really the success was down to the dancers themselves.
This troupe was incredible. So tightly rehearsed, hardly showing signs of tiring through the pacing, high energy choreography. Their movement was precise and able to adapt to the variety of movement thrown at them. It was on another level of skill, I was in awe. If this is what they present at their debut, I look forward to seeing what they bring us next.
★★★★
Gravity, Ryu and Friends
Part of the Festival of Korean Dance 2026
The Place, London / 15 May 2026
Press ticket
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