By Han Seok-jin After completing the dance theory major at the Korea National University of Arts Dance Department, she received her Ph.D. in dance from the University of Surrey in the UK. She is currently an assistant professor in the dance department at the Korea National University of Arts Dance Department.
For this page, the interview has been edited from it’s original printing due to translations (English to Korean to English). Published in the Dance Magazine, Seoul, Korea
On May 16, 2025, the day before the opening ceremony of the 25th Seoul International Improvisation Dance Festival, I met Katie Duck at Daehangno on a day that was a quite heavy spring rain. This year, she was invited to the Seoul International Improvisation Dance Festival for the fourth time. She is an international artist renown for her real time performances. At this year’s event, Katie Duck appeared at the 25th Anniversary International with her lecture (The history of the word Improvisation) on May 19, a performance on the 20th, and held workshops from the 18th to the 21st (at the Byeongga Art Theatre’s Medium Practice Room). Originally from the United States and active in Western Europe for several decades, she is currently based in Amsterdam and is a multidisciplinary artist who combines dance, theatre, music, and video. At the age of 73, she is actively engaged in teaching, performing, and creating. I had time to ask her about the relationship between composition, multidisciplinary and real time performance.
It’s been quite a while since you last visited Korea. How do you feel about coming back to Korea after such a long time?
It is nice to be back. I am happy that the festival is still taking place.
You’ve been working for decades. How did you get started?
I studied theater when I was a young. At one point in my studies, I worked with a director who told me that the best way to memorise lines and find my character was to rehearse in costume and improvise. I asked him what he meant by ‘improvising.’ He said, “Just act.”. I played with putting the character in situations that weren’t in the script, and when I played the role again, I had a much deeper understanding of the character, and it felt I had made the role my own. It introduced to me the idea that I could create my own work.
My mother was a jazz singer. When I saw her singing and changing the melody, she said, “I’m improvising.” I began to observe musicians, how musicians play a melody and then improvise.
I studied modern dance at the University of Utah. John Cage and Merce Cunningham came to perform. I listened to the sounds of John Cage, closed my eyes, “What is this?” That was the moment when I encountered the concept of “chance” as a tool for creating compositions, and how the depth of how listening can impower creativity.
I joined a mime troupe. Everyone in the group created their own pieces. I discovered humour and used it to express myself in my pieces. I realised I that like dry and dark humour more than light and bright humour. I was invited to Europe. I met directors, dancers and musicians who supported my journey for making my own work, incorporating improvisation in my creative process, performed in real time in front of public. Every time I performed the audience and the situation was different. I created pieces that were not set in time, rather set in ‘feeling time’.
Musicians invited me to improvise with them. I participated with movement and text. In these situations, I developed an understanding of how improvisation can become impulsive, and that If the situation was driven by impulsive actions there were no moments of pause, or silence. Therefore, there was a lack of tension to lift and drop the composition. I carried that experience to dancers who were improvising. I noticed how impulsive activity was not allowing for the dancer to choose moments in time, that we needed to be clam, listen and use our Intuition to choose moments in time to pause, flow, or exit. Impulsive action is a self preserving state of consciousness. We need to loose ourselves, listen deeply to each other, to the music, to the space with an empathic state of mind that provides an emotional connection with the audience.
I met Mary Fulgerson in the early 1980’s (release technique). She introduced me to studying the body versus learning (but) another dance, music, or acting technique. She offered me a post as a senior lecturer at Dartington College of Art, so I could focus on my multidisciplinary and real time performance research.
What does improvisation mean to you in your work?
Improvisation is something that I look at from a microscopic perspective within my larger composition studiers. I use my studies in multidisciplinary composition to direct my process toward real time pieces. I train performing artists so that they have the agility and proficiency to make choices in real time. Often choreographers use improvisation in their creation process, and then place those experiences in a set time frame. I call that loose to tight. My creation process are made up of tight rules and time frames that are eventually performed in real time. My work is tight to loose.
Improvisation is something that happens during a performance, right?
Improvisation is something that the performer is responsible for and is implied in how the composition is performed. Improvisation is a verb. Improvisation is something that is “done”. If you consider improvisation as a noun or a “thing” it can be assumed that it is the opposite of choreography, or even an escape from composition generally. In my work improvisation is a given. It is an action that I do not consider as an antithesis of my composition studies, rather it is how the event is done.
What qualities or abilities do you think a dancer needs to be open to the event of meeting the audience?
“Listening”’. Getting out of yourself. There is always a choice to pause, to flow, or to exit. Going on stage is a choice. Choices have consequences. Composition is ultimately the art of listening, choosing and exiting.
So what do you expect the audience to experience from the work?
We live in a society in 2025 that advices us not to gather. Before I go on stage, I thank them for coming. I don’t expect anything from the audience. Of course, I expect the admission fee. (Laughs). But the real conversation happens after the performance. Different people remember different things. I do one hour performances. After a performance I ask: “How long was the performance?”. When someone says, “It felt like 5, 10 or 20 minutes, my feeling is “mission accomplished. If they say, “It felt like one hour,” I apologise. I am engaged in time-arts. That is what I do. In the piece, time is passing, and space is shifting in diverse perspectives. It is my job to keep time, to create space. It is the publics option to feel time passing moment to moment and be emotionally engaged at their own will.
Your multidisciplinary work is very interesting, using improvisation as a creative tool and a performance strategy, rather than using composition as the opposite of improvisation. I look forward to seeing your work in person next time. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.
It was a pleasure to be with you.