Time in the (LEIMAY) Studio with...

Eunjin Choi

LEIMAY Studio Manager Lou Mandolini in conversation with LEIMAY Fellow Eunjin Choi. Eunjin is a choreographer, teacher, performer, and all around great human.

• Lou-What is the first thing you do when you begin your rehearsal at CAVE?

Eunjin- I drink coffee or tea on one of the chairs next to the CAVE entrance to take a break. On occasions when I can't, I take time to meditate lying on the studio floor. 

• How have weekly rehearsals impacted the way you work?

It's good that there are continuity and flow to the thread of thought on what I'm working on. Generally for the sake of cutting cost during the production period, one limits the use of the studio. If an artist makes work based on studio rehearsals, then he or she feels a gap between performances. This kind of gap makes continuing to produce work inefficiently and also creates psychological instability for the artist. All experience that stems from happenings in the studio becomes seed and nutrition to the work even if it's listening to music and staring at a space, or walking around. Personally, regular use of studio is something I want to maintain.

• In one sentence, what is at the core of your work? What drives you to create?

Empowering things that are small and weak.

• Discuss the use of the body in your practice...

In my practice, choreography is the fabrication of the body's presence. Although it depends on the piece I'm working on, I use rehearsal time to practice and think about appropriate devices for staging a specific presence.

• Tell me about your first experience with LEIMAY, CAVE, or Ximena and Shige?

I first came to CAVE two years ago during my Movement Research Exchange Program (MRX). At the time I only saw the space and had not met Ximena or Shige. Two years later, when I came to participate in the program, I met Ximena at a fellow artist's house. I felt generosity and kindness from the first few words Ximena spoke to me. Then I returned to CAVE to maintain its beauty, warmth, and magic.

• What does it mean to you to be a producing artist, working collectively, to create SOAK 2018?

Learning how to live together. 

• If you ran your own space, what would be your focus and how would connect to the community?

I have not thought about owning a space, but if this becomes possible, I would firstly share a studio space that would allow artists to use and maintain and foster their practice regularly. Secondly, I would like for it to be able to host study groups, forums, and discussions regularly to help diverse and active discourse develops. In regards to the community, I would like to see meetings with artists in the community with a communal agenda and discuss the current state of our society and location and planning what artists can do for the community.

Thanks for sitting down with me Eunjin! Learn more about this featured Fellow's artistic practice on her website and through her conectom profile.