Eun-Me Ahn and her dancers have painstakingly forged a new style of Asian dance that is both boundless and perpetually evolving. This time, Seoul’s “enfant terrible” has sent the Post Orientalist Express speeding down the same track as Dragons, her runaway success performed at the Théâtre de la Ville in 2021. The Korean artist draws on both her shamanic heritage and her New York training in a crusade against orientalist clichés that explores what really drives Asian youth today. Legends, fashion trends, pop culture and dance styles are pushed to ridiculous extremes, revealing their inherent contradictions. Behind the contagious vitality of the work, we glimpse the possibility of redefining cultural identity beyond the dichotomy between tradition and modernity.

Thomas Hahn