O-Jak Bridge Art and Dance Festival 2023, A Non-Traditional Swan Lake
In Korean Folklore, the “O-Jak Bridge” refers to a bridge made by crows and magpies that spans across the Milky Way allowing two distant lovers to reunite one night each year.
In 2022, Korean Artist MiYoung Seul Margolis, founded the O-Jak Bridge Art and Dance Festival, showcasing Korean creative culture through a one-night-only performance that nearly sold out the 300-seat capacity of the Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle, WA. This inaugural performance featured the MMDC (MiYoung Margolis Dance Collective), Adage Ballet Academy, Eurasia Academy and Ensemble and KOSMIX. Altogether more than 60 dancers took the stage to share their performance art with the audience. Each group brought its own unique style and cultural influence which created an incredible juxtaposition of traditional and modern styles blending across the diverse cultures of the dance companies.
By MiYoung Margolis, DWC Ambassador
Name pronunciation: Me-Young Mar-gole-is | Pronouns: she/her
In Korean Folklore, the “O-Jak Bridge” refers to a bridge made by crows and magpies that spans across the Milky Way allowing two distant lovers to reunite one night each year.
In 2022, Korean Artist MiYoung Seul Margolis, founded the O-Jak Bridge Art and Dance Festival, showcasing Korean creative culture through a one-night-only performance that nearly sold out the 300-seat capacity of the Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle, WA. This inaugural performance featured the MMDC (MiYoung Margolis Dance Collective), Adage Ballet Academy, Eurasia Academy and Ensemble and KOSMIX. Altogether more than 60 dancers took the stage to share their performance art with the audience. Each group brought its own unique style and cultural influence which created an incredible juxtaposition of traditional and modern styles blending across the diverse cultures of the dance companies.
In 2023, The O-Jak Bridge Art and Dance Festival will be held in close partnership between MiYoung Margolis Dance Collective and Adage Ballet Academy and feature guest performances by dancers of the Pacific Northwest Ballet. The theme for this year’s festival is “Non-Traditional Swan Lake”. (Location: Erickson Theater, Date: December 9th, Time: 3:30pm and 7:30pm)
The choreography for the “Non-Traditional Swan Lake” is being directed by MiYoung Margolis, the founder of the O-Jak Bridge Art and Dance Festival, and Guillaume Basso, a former PNB ballet dancer and chief of Adage Ballet Academy.
This year’s cast will be 45 dancers strong. The choreography will once again be anchored in Korean Cultural Dance and blended with traditional ballet, street and tap dance to tell the classic story of Swan Lake but through a non-traditional lens.
Swan Lake is a tragic love story that follows the relationships between Odette, the White Swan and Prince Siegfried. The story beings in a lake filled with the tears of Odette’s mother, tears of sorrow, but also tears of hope that one day her daughter’s curse would be lifted, and she would find her true love.
After the famous repertoire of Swan Lake and traditional ballet of the four swans, the first act ends with a duet of the famous Odette and Prince Siegfried falling in love, and the second act begins with the Great Ball to find Prince Siegfried’s bride. During the Ball, the traditional Swan Lake ballet includes performances by Hungarian, Spanish, and Russian ballet, the O-Jak interpretation replaces these with alternative styles, including a Korean solo sword dance and a Gender Twisted Princess, creating a unique and fresh story to attract the audience.
Another exciting departure is highlighted at the end of the ball, upon Odile <the Black Swan> entrance pretending to be Odette. This Scene is presented as a modern dance piece, choreographed by MiYoung Margolis and set to the orchestral accompaniment of BTS’s Black Swan.
Poster Art by: S.L. Yang
Though Swan Lake traditionally ends in tragedy, the O-Jak Bridge interpretation diverges, and the two lovers are embraced by a happy ending, where once per year, they cross the Milky Way to reunite thanks to a bridge of cows and magpies. The Korean traditional dance company <Morado> will finish the festival with Jin-Do Drum dance to boost the festival’s energy, and Kathryn Tower’s Tap Dance work, selected through the <Non-Traditional Four Swans Dance> choreography competition, attracts attention.
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Celebrating Multicultural Dance at O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival
O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival is set to have an array of guest performers, in addition to performances from MMDC. The festival will feature performances by KOSMIX, a dance group that covers popular K-pop dances around the Seattle area. MiYoung looks forward to KOSMIX bringing a youthful energy to the festival line-up. Eurasia Virtual Academy & Ensemble is another guest performer, featuring artists specializing in dance from Central Asian cultures, as well as classical Russian-style ballet. Adage Ballet Studio, founded by PNB dancer Abby Jayne DeAngelo and former PNB dancer Guillaume Basso, will also showcase excerpts from Swan Lake, including a pas de deux danced by the founders themselves. Finally, Parmida Ziaei, an Iranian American designer, performer, choreographer, and MMDC dancer, will be a featured artist/choreographer at the festival, showcasing a modified version of her work Journey, centered around the concept of immigration.
MiYoung Margolis on Connecting Cultures Through Art
Name pronunciation: Me-Young Mar-gole-is | Pronouns: she/her
By Madison Huizinga, DWC Blog Editor
Part of what makes the Seattle area such an inspiring and vibrant place to live is the diversity embodied across its inhabitants. Throughout the region, artists of all genres showcase their unique backgrounds and help cement feelings of community through their own innovative creations. Local artist MiYoung Margolis is interested in not only celebrating Seattle’s cultural diversity in dance but also bringing multiple cultures together through art. That’s why she and the rest of MiYoung Margolis Dance Collective are presenting the first annual O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival, an event aimed at engaging audiences in an elevated multicultural performance art experience. Buy tickets for this one-night-only event on November 5th, 2022 at 7:00 PM at Broadway Performance Hall in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.
MiYoung is a lifelong dancer and artist who has trained mainly in ballet, modern, and traditional Korean dance styles. She is the creator of MiYoung Margolis Dance Collective or MMDC, a Seattle-based dance company specializing in performance art that blends contemporary dance with various cultural traditions, including those inspired by MiYoung’s Korean heritage.
The name of O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival is inspired by the Korean folk tale of Ojakgyo, or the “Bridge of Crows and Magpies.” The tale is about two lovers who are vastly separated but meet together on July 7, the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, when crows and magpies form a bridge to unite them. MiYoung points out that Seattle is a multicultural city that often has community events centered around individual cultures, often in their own silos. Thus, she created the O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival as a way to “bridge” the gap between these different cultural events and bring performers together for one night to celebrate art on an upscale stage.
Poster Art by: S.L. Yang
“My purpose is to create a platform that brings these talented local artists to an elevated stage,” MiYoung says of her mission behind the festival. She hopes the event inspires performers and audience members to embrace the unique facets of different cultures while enabling explorations of fusions between traditional and contemporary dance traditions. The juxtaposition of tradition and modernity is a theme MiYoung enjoys exploring in her own choreography as well.
O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival is set to have an array of guest performers, in addition to performances from MMDC. The festival will feature performances by KOSMIX, a dance group that covers popular K-pop dances around the Seattle area. MiYoung looks forward to KOSMIX bringing a youthful energy to the festival line-up. Eurasia Virtual Academy & Ensemble is another guest performer, featuring artists specializing in dance from Central Asian cultures, as well as classical Russian-style ballet. Adage Ballet Studio, founded by PNB dancer Abby Jayne DeAngelo and former PNB dancer Guillaume Basso, will also showcase excerpts from Swan Lake, including a pas de deux danced by the founders themselves. Finally, Parmida Ziaei, an Iranian American designer, performer, choreographer, and MMDC dancer, will be a featured artist/choreographer at the festival, showcasing a modified version of her work Journey, centered around the concept of immigration.
MMDC’s choreography often involves elements of contemporary, ballet, or tango styles of dance, which are used to help facilitate the telling of Korean-inspired stories. MMDC plans to showcase three dance pieces, including a version of MiYoung’s piece “The Wind of Fate,” a dance originally set as a duet that will be reworked as a group performance. Throughout her choreographic work, MiYoung enjoys blending traditional elements of Korean culture, such as music or costumes, with more non-traditional contemporary movements to defy audience expectations.
On September 10th and 11th 2022, MMDC performed during Chuseok, a traditional Korean mid-autumn harvest festival in honor of the full moon. The dance company’s performances in Gig Harbor and Tacoma, Washington acted as a preview of what to expect at the O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival in November.
Poster Art by: S.L. Yang
In the coming years, MiYoung hopes to make the O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival an annual event. And in the spring of 2023, she plans to organize another Seattle dance festival centered around solos and duet performances. Stay tuned to MMDC’s social media for more information.
Be sure to buy tickets for the first annual O-Jak Bridge Dance & Art Festival on November 5th, 2022 at 7:00 PM at Broadway Performance Hall in Seattle, Washington.
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Disclaimer
All content found on the Dancewear Center Website, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and all other relevant social media platforms including: text, images, audio, or other formats were created for informational purposes only. Offerings for continuing education credits are clearly identified and the appropriate target audience is identified. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this Website.
If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor, go to the emergency department, or call 911 immediately. Dancewear Center does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, physicians, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned on dancewearcenter.net. Reliance on any information provided by dancewearcenter.net, Dancewear Center employees, contracted writers, or medical professionals presenting content for publication to Dancewear Center is solely at your own risk.
Links to educational content not created by Dancewear Center are taken at your own risk. Dancewear Center is not responsible for the claims of external websites and education companies.
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