Works before 2013

Fish on a Tree in a Little Pond

The piece explores the theme of unachievable dreams and desires. Yet, the world seems richer with the presence of impossible dreams and fantasies. A fish and a tree live in different environments that would suffocate them if they switched places, but they still long to reach each other. A pond allows them to meet through their reflections on the water. In this piece, the body becomes the medium that brings them together, much like the shadow on the water. This shadow sways and undulates, not anchored in reality but existing as an illusion. Unachievable dreams still make life beautiful.

Premiered on Mar 10-11, 2012
Performed by Young Sun Lee
in Young Sun Lee's Solo Dance Collection Homemade & Organic
Arco Theater, Hanguk Performing Arts Center, Seoul, Korea
Music from Wind Chime Orchard by Calmsound,
Joy of Being by Ernestine Faux, and various artists
Photo by Woo-Hee Kim

Solitary Room Talks To Me

My major creative process involves leaving myself alone in an empty room. Then, many things inside me permeate the space like an osmotic action. My lost memories stimulate my senses and consciousness, which I transform into tangible and publicly accessible forms. I further integrate these materials into artwork, following my mind's logic. My work, Solitary Room Talks to Me, was born out of this process.

Premiered on Oct 16, 2011
Performed by Young Sun Lee
2011 Seoul Dance Collection & Young Sun Lee's Solo Dance Collection Homemade & Organic at Arco Theater, Hanguk Performing Arts Center, Seoul, Korea
Music: Fore by Takagi Masakatsu, Evelyn Ficarra
Photo by Woo-Hee Kim

Young Sun Lee

Young Sun Lee is a dish prepared for the taste of gourmet audiences. It is a highly personalized and refined movement piece abstracted from the properties of Young Sun Lee, who is an inseparable medium from the choreographer.
Young Sun Lee was selected out of over 530 pieces to be performed at the National Gala of the 2010 American College Dance Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. The piece was also invited by the DreamDance Foundation in LA and the Dance Charlotte Festival in NC, USA.

Premiered in Mar 2012
Performed in; Studio Theater, Kranner Center for Performing Arts, IL, USA; Tryon Festival Theater, Kranner Center for Performing Arts, IL, USA; Kennedy Center, Washington DC, USA
Ford Amphitheater, LA, USA; Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, NC, USA; Arco Theater, Hanguk Performing Arts Center, Seoul, Korea
Performed by Young Sun Lee in Silence & with music by various artists
Photo by Daniel James

Wallpaper

I tried to unfold a three-dimensional wallpaper on stage. The piece was inspired by my childhood memory of playing with patterns on the wallpaper in bed. In my sleepy imagination, the patterns came alive, moving all around the room along with the stories I created. For the piece, I crafted movement patterns from diverse sources and played with them as I did in my childhood fantasy, following the logic of my mind. This random play and association generated stories that I could not grasp literally but understood with a certain clarity. They must be fragments of my subconscious mind brought to the surface. During the process, I allowed my mind to reside in an intriguing, odd, elliptical, and mysteriously relentless state, like the moment of falling asleep.

Premiered on Mar 8, 2010
Performers: Andrea Chim, Caitlin Miles, Anna Clarke, Kristen Walterman, Melissa Pillarella
Costume Concept & Selection: Young Sun Lee
Music: : Galina Ustvolskaya. Sonata No. 3 for Piano
Studio Theater, Krannert Center for Performing Arts, IL
Photo: Daniel James

Homer & Apple

Homer and Apple was initiated from a memory of a conversation with someone, which I transformed to a poem. I then worked with a performer with a hearing loss who had taken my ballet class to transit the idea to a performance. I was interested in realizing the abstracted ideas contained in the original poem, using the body trained with a different“physical technique”, ASL. I transformed ASL to the abstract movement by specifying the concepts of time, space, and energy, and by trying to eliminate the main function of ASL as a means to communicate literal meanings. My poem served as a movement score. Then, I captured the performance on camera, transforming it into a flat-screen presentation. The creative process can be likened to a liberal translation between mediums, which is far more challenging than translating between verbal languages, with myself as the translator.

Premiered in Feb 2010

Performed by Caroline Hernandez (in the photo)
Director/Choreographer: Young Sun Lee
Film Shooting/Editor: Young Sun Lee
Poem /Movement Score: Young Sun Lee

Feb 2010     Screened at the Dance Across the Board Conference with the oral presentation on the
                    creative process(the subtitle: Transition that Involves Transformation and Translation)
                    New York University Tisch, NY.

Afternoon Illusion

Afternoon Illusion was created in a manner similar to how a dream unfolds in time and space. "Illusion" is another word for a dream that I have when I am awake. In a dream, events happen without following the logic of chronological order or causal relationships. Time and space become entangled, flowing in different directions. Sometimes, the same dream repeats, filled with imaginary figures not found in reality. These characters can abruptly shift at unexpected moments.
Like a dream, the courtyard of the Education building at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign triggered random images, memories, movements, and stories from my subconscious mind. These fractured times and images were transformed into seven installation pieces and a dance ensemble: Happy Lover, Little Bush Elf, Sleeping Ballerina, Cicada Elf, Tree Elf, Hairy Snail, and Jealous Snake.

Premiered: Oct 25-26, 2008
Site: Courtyard of the College of Education on UIUC Campus, IL
Artistic Director & Choreography: Young Sun Lee
Performers: Anna Marks, Amanda Krueger, Jessica Cornish, Jessica Perng, Joseph Hutto, Kristin Marrs, Leah Hutto, Sanda Saveanu, Young Sun Lee
Music Design and Performance (xylophone/chime bells): Young Sun Lee
Photo/Brochure/Image Design: Young Sun Lee

Snail III-Sexy Snail

This piece was inspired by the imagination of a large banana slug without a shell, embodying qualities of sexiness, sensuality, sensitivity, and subtlety. Tyra Banks once mentioned on TV that sexiness is not about a specific pose but about how one presents oneself. Lee integrated both physical and conceptual aspects of sexiness into this dance piece. The piece is versatile and can be performed in various spaces and on different surfaces.

Premiered on Stage: Mar 2012
Performed by Young Sun Lee
Performed at: Arco Theater, Hanguk Performing Arts Center, Seoul, Korea.

Costume Design/Concept: Young Sun Lee
Music: Silence/Various artists

Subsidence

The bottom of subconsciousness…the sea of the abyss. Water loses its reason to flow and exists in stillness. Silence that transcends death… A blurry sense of being… Where extinct and lost memories touch my consciousness. I stay in peace with horror in my hands. In the subsided hole of my life, I exist between death and life, refusing to float on the surface of my consciousness.

Performed by Young Sun Lee
Music: Proiezioni sonore (I, II) by Franco Evangelisti
Premiered: Seoul, 2006
Studio Dance Festival, Seoul, Korea

Snail II-Timid Snail

A timid snail is hesitant and scared, taking a long time to emerge from its house and quickly retreating deep inside its shell at the slightest stimulus. This piece was inspired by the African Snail, the largest of its kind. The snail symbolizes another aspect of Lee's self-identity. Still dreaming to be free, the indecisive snail finally ventures fully into the world. Without its shallow shelter, the fragile snail becomes freer and stronger than ever as it faces the vulnerable environment, unafraid of dying.

Premiered in 2005
Performed by Young Sun Lee, Joo-Won Seo (Piano)
Music Arrangement: Young Sun Lee
Music Source from Pishina's Technical Studies
Piano Sonata by Beethoven.
KNUA Hall, Seoul, Korea