GS Arts Center to open 2026 season testing limits of art
Now in its second year, the GS Arts Center in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul, has announced its 2026 curated season, centered on the “Artists” series that pushes beyond traditional artistic boundaries.
The series spotlights two to three multidisciplinary creators each year, offering an in-depth exploration of their work. Blurring the boundaries between music, dance, theater and media art, it introduces artists whose practices defy categorization, offering audiences a multidimensional experience.
This year’s featured artists are British choreographer Wayne McGregor along with a collaborative team of Japanese sculptor Kohei Nawa and Belgian choreographer Damien Jalet, whose work has consistently engaged with a central question of the digital age: What is the relationship between science, technology and the human body? Through their work, the GS Arts Center said, the season will examine how technology reshapes our imagination of the human body, as well as how art reconfigures sensory experience in an increasingly technological world.
The season opens with “Deepstaria” by Company Wayne McGregor on March 27-28. The multi-award-winning choreographer’s latest work combines contemporary dance, visual art and advanced technology. Central to the piece is Aisoma, a machine-learning-powered choreography tool developed in collaboration with Google and incorporated into the creative process. The production pairs the extreme darkness produced by Vantablack technology, which absorbs 99.965 percent of light, with sound reconstructed by an AI audio engine, immersing the stage in an environment that can be likened to outer space or the deep sea.
In May, “Infra” will have its Korean premiere in collaboration with the Korean National Ballet. Presented as part of a double bill from May 8 to 10, the work premiered in 2008 with The Royal Ballet in London and is widely regarded as one of McGregor’s defining pieces.
June will turn its focus to collaboration between Nawa and Jalet, opening with “Planet (Wanderer)” (June 25-26), which brings together their ongoing exploration of body and matter, sculpture and performance. On June 28, the center will also present a newly premiering performance by the pair — the title of which is still to be announced — alongside screenings of “Mist,” a dance film created with Nederlands Dans Theater.
Programs will also extend beyond the theater walls. Rimini Protokoll’s audio walking tour “Remote Seoul” (April 3-May 3), part of the German theater group’s “The Walk” series, invites groups of 30 participants wearing headphones to explore the Gangnam area in southern Seoul by following a navigational voice.
From April 3 to 5, the center will host “Art Planet,” a technology- and art-based program for children. Using immersive sound, AI-driven facial recognition and interactive drawing workshops, performance halls, lobbies and dressing rooms will be transformed into experiential playgrounds.
Cross-genre collaborations continue elsewhere in the season.
On May 28, the Korean National Symphony Orchestra will present a live animation cinesthetics performance that combines classical music with live drawing and animation by French illustrator Gregoire Pont, with the tales of "Peter and the Wolf" and "Mother Goose." A collaborative program between the GS Arts Center and the Seoul Jazz Festival is also planned, with details to be announced later.
Tickets go on sale at 2 p.m. on Jan. 15 through the GS Arts Center website and Nol. Early bookings made by Jan. 28 will receive a 40 percent discount.
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