
“This award-winning piece is a strangely intimate but, certainly innovative.”
Maryam Philpott, The Reviews Hub
TONGUE GYMNASTICS
In the piece <Tongue Gymnastics>, LEE Yun Jung applies a choreographic technique into the physical mechanism of the tongue root’s movement and experiments the process of the movement being transformed into the work of art. The tongue root movement the choreographer had accidentally found led to the experience of the density in dance resulting from the sequential movements of internal organs that had never been noticed before and became a motif for this piece.
The tongue, which is a muscle generating the movement, can feel the taste and it relates to the food intake. It also has the function of generating the language, but it often gets hidden in daily lives and on stage in theaters or functions as a formalized and familiar symbol regardless of ‘its substances’.
The Choreographer builds gymnastics to activate the tongue and tongue roots through a score-based strategy, while continuously providing ideas for the choreography. This process dissolves social norms or customs that relates to the tongue while connecting to the production of individual images arose from the materiality of the tongue.
Therefore, the piece questions about the dance through the 'tongue' that has been excluded from the subject of history, context, and ideology in dance, while at the same time exploring the possibility of dance being experimented as 'reality' and 'materiality'.





“An original work that translates the movement of the tongue into a bodily score.”
Lee Jong-chan, The Preview


“The beauty of the dance led by the 30 cm long bundle of muscles wriggling inside the mouth of a vertebrate.”
KIM Jiyon, No Space Just a Place
Tongue Gymnastics
Dance, 44 minutes
Concept & Choreography : LEE Yun Jung
Performers : LEE Yun Jung, IM Eun Joung
Performs / Exhibitions
2019 Theatre Sinchon , Seoul (Premiere)
2020 Daelim Museum, Seoul
2022 The Place Theater, London
2022 The ZOOM art center, Seoul
2023 International Typography Biennale, Seoul
Awards
2019 ‘The Best Work’, The Korean Association of Dance Critics and Researchers
Supports
2019 The Place Theater, Korean Cultural Centre, Korea Art Management Service
2020 Gucci (Commission)
2022 Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, The Zoom Art Center

LEE Yun Jung
Yun Jung Lee, the director of Dance Project PPopKKi works in dance, choreography, arts education, and somatic practice. She explores the potential of the body at the intersection of society and art, researching choreographic approaches for resonance and symbiosis among marginalized and precarious bodies. Her recent works include Lung No. 6 Jumps, Inner Body Vibration, 1/75th of a Second, and Between the Dot and the Spine.
Contact
LEE Yun Jung (Dance Project PPopKKi)
ppopkki2024@gmail.com
@yunjunglee_ppopkki