Review: LABORATORY DANCE PROJECT at the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater

DC audiences were lucky this week to see Korean contemporary dance company, Laboratory Dance Project (LDP), for a rare U.S. appearance. Founded in 2001, this company of stunning dancers brought a unique blend of intensity and blase cool to their work. While neither piece of choreography made full use of the dancers’ prowess, Thursday’s opening night performance was nonetheless a captivating and welcome distraction. 

LDP performed two works from 2022 by choreographer Dongkyu Kim, MOB and Ash. MOB, the shorter of the two pieces, was also more coherent with stronger pacing and dynamic range. Set on eight male dancers, MOB explores the relationship between the individual and the crowd. It opens in silence, drawing focus on the two dancers moving tensely, independently and yet somehow communicating with each other. Tension continued throughout the piece, with periods of small, stiff-legged bounces and arms swiping with clenched fingers, cutting through the air. All of a sudden a dancer would break free, with swaying hips or a subtle undulation of the spine before resuming tension. This rubber band snap of the body and supreme control which allows the dancers to appear to fully lose their center amid sharp movements is a hallmark of LDP’s dancers. It’s beautiful and feels closer to what we might see onstage of the best pop stars’ tours rather than a concert dance stage. The beauty, however, is somewhat dampened when it repeats again and again throughout the evening, leading at times to tedium. 

Ash, the second piece, again showcased the dancers’ unique flexibility, articulation and musicality, but was less effective overall. Running almost forty minutes, Ash felt longer, with an ambient soundscape that did little to propel the work forward. While the movement vocabulary was more grotesque than in MOB, the movement quality was largely similar. 

Most novel was what both pieces lacked - extended unison passages and partnering. While unison was employed occasionally and served to amplify intensity or signal a shift to a new section, it could have been used even more as a tool to focus the eye and give the audience time to relish some of the more peculiar - in a great way - passages. I was left wondering if the limited partnering is a hallmark of the company, the choreographer or both. It wasn’t good or bad, just unusual, especially for works of this length. Still, LDP’s performance was overall strong, and hopefully the company will be invited to make more U.S. appearances in the coming years. It was a useful reminder that great dance and dancers can come from anywhere, and given their 20+ year tenure in South Korea, I imagine there are other companies that have sprouted up in response to this powerhouse that would also be worth seeing. 

Performances run through Saturday, November 2 at the Kennedy Center. Performance length: one hour and twenty minutes with one intermission.

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