Melancholy Dance Company at the Attakkalari India Biennial 2026

Your Symptoms directly addresses the identity crisis and social issues faced by modern individuals, expanding the boundaries of perception and sensation. Today, people live with unnamed emotions—loneliness, sorrow, anxiety, psychological wounds and a lack of love. Yet they conceal their inner pain behind expressionless faces, rarely revealing their emotional scars to the outside world. This work intricately expresses the loneliness and emotional unease of modern individuals and, through a deep exploration of universal human sentiments, proposes a fresh mode of contemporary stage expression that encourages expanded reflection and thought. Audiences expand personal experiences into universal emotions, sharing a complex experience through physical movement and the structural experimentation of dance. Through Your Symptoms, audience members are invited to observe their unresolved emotions, break free from a social structure that inhibits emotional expression and enter their own symptoms with both sincerity and playfulness.

We experience countless successes and failures to achieve our goals. Sometimes we fall and other times we exhaust ourselves trying to succeed. Through this leap and jump, Flight depicts how we take off to achieve our goals. The flying motion completed by the two illustrates the moment human beings overcome their own physical confinement.

Founded in 2016 by choreographer Cheolin Jeong, Melancholy Dance Company views the world we live in as a source of artistic inspiration, creating performances that reflect contemporary human experiences which resonate with a wide range of audiences. Major works include Flight (2016), 0g (2018), Übermensch (2019), Your Symptoms (2020) and Mobility (2021). The company has received numerous honours, including commendation from the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2021; the Jury President’s Award at the 5th Seoul Dance Film Festival for the dance film Übermensch; the Best Performance Award at the 26th Dance Arts Awards hosted by Changmu Arts Center in 2020 and the Best Work Award from the Korean Dance Critics Association in 2019. In 2023, Melancholy Dance Company began expanding beyond the field of dance, starting with a performance featured in the MMCA Hyundai Motor Series: Little Ark, an exhibition by Choe U-Ram at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul. Since then, the company has been seeking to expand its presence not only in Korea but also on international stages.

Cheolin Jeong, Founder and Artistic Director of Melancholy Dance Company, began his creative journey with the work Free Fall in 2014. Since then, he has actively created and presented works such as Flight (2016), 0g (2018), Übermensch (2019), Your Symptoms (2020), Mobility (2021) and Unprotected (2022), earning recognition from the dance community for his choreographic expertise and promising potential. With a focus on physicality, Jeong explores diverse movement styles and modes of expression to craft performances that deeply connect with audiences. Through consistent dedication and sincerity, he continues to develop his artistic vision as both a dancer and choreographer.

Transforming Lives Through Arts, Education and Culture
Celebrating 25 years of pioneering work in the performing arts, Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts stands as India’s premier institution for contemporary dance. Attakkalari was established in 2001 in Bengaluru to foster the development of contemporary cultural expression in India, particularly in the realm of performing arts.

Today, Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts is internationally recognized as a leading educational and cultural organization in South Asia. Guided by its core philosophy of “Traditional Physical Wisdom, Innovation and Technology,” Attakkalari seamlessly integrates India’s rich physical and performance traditions with global contemporary somatic practices, digital media and emerging technologies.

Through a range of visionary and strategic programs, Attakkalari has made a bold and lasting impact on the contemporary dance landscape in India. Its initiatives continue to inspire and shape the work of artists and organizations across the country, setting benchmarks in education, innovation and creative excellence.

For more information, visit: www.attakkalari.org | www.attakkalaribiennial.org

BLR hubba is the Bengaluru City festival, now in it's second edition. Over the first two weeks of December, the city will host 500+ events in 40+ locations across 10 categories. For more information: blrhubba.in