South Korea’s Melancholy Dance Company to bring two performances to Bengaluru on January 25

The 12th Attakkalari India Biennial will present Your Symptoms, and Flight, by Melancholy Dance Company from South Korea as part of BLR Hubba and Attakkalari India Biennial 2025-26. The double bill, which marks the finale of the festival, is being presented in India for the first time.

Speaking to The Hindu, Jeong Cheol In, founder and director of South Korean Melancholy Dance Company, says even though some of the dancers from the team have performed in India before, it will be the first time Flight and Your Symptoms are being presented to an Indian audience. Jeong spoke with the help of an independent producer and translator Jin who travelled to India from Seoul.

Speaking on the phone from the Indira Gandhi International Airport, before boarding the connecting flight to Bengaluru, Jeong says his choreography articulates the impulse to rise beyond physical and psychological limitations.

According to him, Flight looks at moments of exhaustion, collapse and a gradual act of moving towards one’s aspirations. He says through leaps and suspended gestures, the two dancer-piece explores human emotions that transcend countries and borders. “One can only achieve success when there have been failures. Flight was born from this thought and I have portrayed it with movements of rising and falling.”

Jeong, who made his choreographic debut in 2014 has an approach rooted in a deep investigation of physicality. He is the principal choreographer and one of the performers in both the dance pieces. Through a nuanced vocabulary of movement, he says, he examines the emotional and psychological layers of the human condition, that resonate with audiences.

Jeong Cheol In, founder and director of South Korean Melancholy Dance Company
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Your Symptomsaddresses identity crisis and social issues faced by modern individuals. Jeong says, “This work intricately expresses the loneliness and emotional unease of modern individuals and, through a deep exploration of universal human sentiments, it proposes a fresh mode of contemporary stage expression.” With seven dancers, all human emotions are embraced and reflected on stage.