Dance Reviews : Korean Mae Bang Yi at Wilshire Ebell

Performing the ritualistic “Monk’s Dance” at the Wilshire Ebell Theater on Friday, Korean National Living Treasure Mae Bang Yi didn’t notice the flash cameras and noisy children in the audience, the billowing smoke and shifting lighting effects on the stage.

Indeed, this 65-year-old artist didn’t seem aware of his own dancing either. His concentration remained so purely inward that even the virtuosity of this extended Buddhist solo became beside the point in an essentially spiritual experience.

Yi wore a gleaming aqua robe with a scarlet sash, and over that a sheer, hooded gown with long tubular sleeves that drooped to the floor. He held sticks in his hands that both extended his reach and allowed him to flick the sleeves into the air with the precision of a master calligrapher.

Of course, the graceful manipulation of long sleeves or scarves is an ancient tradition in Korean dance, and there had been artful examples by other dancers earlier on the same program. But nobody matched the incredible weight and deliberation of Yi’s dancing, or his ability to make the translucent, gossamer sleeves into expressive entities.

After about 10 minutes, the reedy blare of the recorded accompaniment ceased and Yi faced a large drum on a wooden stand, his face and torso calm even as he pounded the instrument in increasingly fast and complex rhythmic assaults.

Did Yi hear his drumming? Impossible to tell. If union with the infinite is the goal of all Buddhist art, this remarkable performance exemplified the selfless rigor required to make that art authentically devotional.

Co-sponsored by the Korea Society and the Korean Cultural Service, the free program began with the Jindalae Children’s Dance Company, then included brief solos to taped music by Kum San Hong, Kum Ran Kim, Ma Ja Im and Ok Kyu Kim.