"I want to go home and shake things up."

I was based in the UK for a while – from 1997 to 2007 – and I have always been involved in something to do with the UK for work. Now I'm running my own theatre in Korea, and one of the main reasons I wanted to participate in this programme [UK-Korea Arts Exchange Programme] is that I've always wanted to make connections, whether they are personal or institution to institution. It has been quite difficult as an institution with very limited resources to come over and make those connections.

Since the British Council invited Korean delegates, we were set up with lots of meetings and given lots of information. I thought it was a fantastic opportunity for an organisation to come over and experience what the British theatre industry and culture is doing, how it's run, to see the bigger picture. It's unusual for us to have the chance to do something like this.

"The whole week was a highlight, and I'm not saying that to be nice!"

The whole week was a highlight – and I'm not saying that to be nice! I stayed after the programme ended, for a month, because there was so much more to do after the first week of research and meetings. Everything felt really key, and the whole week was just overwhelming. If I had to say one or two in particular, they'd be from the individual programme at the end of the week – we had five days of group programme, visiting places, meeting people, seeing shows 10 to 11pm every day, and then two days at the end of the week we had an individual programme shaped around our own interests. I visited Battersea Arts Centre and the National Theatre.

At BAC people were so helpful and welcoming. What they do is just amazing, it's a lovely place. It's an amazing organisation, not only the theatre programme but also the community programme; their role in the local community is just a fine example of what artistic or cultural institutions should be throughout the whole world. I was inspired by them, a lot. It was definitely one of the highlights. The National Theatre have been wonderful, too, regardless of everyone's busy schedule. Gavin Stride [of Farnham Maltings] who I met down at caravan was amazing, too. The caravan showcase is another fine example of what a showcase should be.

"Battersea Arts Centre is just a fine example of what artistic or cultural institutions should be throughout the whole world."

My theatre mostly specialises in dance. Dance is a very traditional form in Korea and theatre is very conservative. The way theatres are conducted and the way they present work is very conservative, too. Dance is even more traditional and conservative than theatre – there's very little talk with any other artform, dance is always just dance. As a director, I really did not like the idea of dance being isolated from other art. It's such a versatile art form, it really could reach out to a lot of people. The core energy, the sheer scale of imagination, it's fantastic! I thought it was a pity that dance was only speaking within dance. We're trying to break out of that, to break through those boundaries. As a theatre, we try very hard to go over the boundaries of the theatre, too – we only started experimenting and making multi-disciplinary work about four years ago. That's one of the earliest examples of this happening in Korea.

"Korea is a country that recognises that art and culture are very important to society"

Korea is a country that recognises that art and culture are very important to society, the government realises that and invests quite a lot of money. We're trying to host and represent the diversity of theatre; although we're called a “dance theatre”, we go way beyond that. We want to expand more and more in terms of the programme. We host about 200 performances every year, so it's a vibrant and busy atmosphere.

The theatre was first established in 1990, so it's still relatively new. Probably the oldest small theatre in Korea is only 40-50 years old, because of the war. It's not a very long history. Because my education was in the UK, and almost all of my connections were here and everything I knew was learned here, I think even before I was running my theatre that my influences were from the UK. I think how art is funded and supported in the UK is one of the greatest examples in the world. The British culture system is at least 20-30 years ahead of ours.

"Everything is dominated by business. It's all about what you can get out of something, and theatre doesn't quite work like that."

On this visit in particular, I've been inspired to go back and start a community programme. I've been thinking about it, always want to speak to the local community who are very distanced from the arts. Korea is such a fast growing country, everything changes really fast. Everything is dominated by business. It's all about what you can get out of something, what you can get back, and theatre doesn't quite work like that. You have to put constant effort in over time, and it rewards you in a different form. It's very difficult for us to always invest, not knowing what will happen.

The main issue for every one of us is just a matter of surviving over time. We have to balance everything really carefully, but I think a community programme is a very important investment. Also, for us to sustain our activity, we need attention from everybody, not just people who are already interested in art. I just want to explore those relationships.

"...we need attention from everybody, not just people who are already interested in art."

One of the potential advantages that Korea has is that, because we're a country with such a fast-growing economy, we're in a situation where, although government funding is never enough, the funding in Korea is quite amazing. It's one of our strengths. Another thing, in dance particularly, is that we have professional training from a very young age. It's very common for most dancers to be professionally well-trained, whereas over here people often start later – I think that's probably another strength of the Korean dance scene. But there are pros and cons; because they are trained from such a young age, often I find that they lack creativity, they lack the ambition to create their own work. They're brilliant dancers but they're not necessarily good choreographers. I think here, a lot of dancers start with the intention of choreographing, too. They start dancing and they have a vision about what will happen on the stage. I find sometimes over here that the dancers are not as skilled and technical as they are in Korea, but they have the creativity that some of our dancers lack.

British theatre is ahead of a lot of countries – it's world-leading. There's a lot of stuff going on! It's amazing how people come from different backgrounds who are working in the arts. In my country, since the war, our vision is rather narrow: people train from a young age to be a painter or a dancer, but it's quite traditional. That's why I want to learn and study the structure of the whole system here, which gives me some ideas about where to go next. I want to go home and shake things up.

Credits

Nakhyun Kang was one of the delegates selected as part of the UK-Korea Exchange Programme, suppored by the British Council. He was speaking to Eleanor Turney. Follow @UKTheatreDance for all the latest blogs, news and opportunities.