The End of Dance in Asian Performing Arts Markets
The End of Dance is a series of texts that examines endings in dance. It offers a reflective space and platform for people to evaluate, digest and see how things have settled for them. We often see writing and content that focuses on the before, the new and the next - this isn't a space for that. This is somewhere that looks at the aftermaths, the impacts and what happened in those end moments.
This text is different from the other interviews in the series, it's a travelogue and marks the ending of an intense period of travel to Asia with some long form thoughts from me, Ian Abbott, as I attended multiple Asian performing arts markets, meetings, camps and symposia from 2023-2025 to see where dance sits (or not) within them.
A little bit of background about me. After having completed my training in Live Art and experimental theatre at the University of Hull, Scarborough Campus, I went onto perform, direct and initiate a number of performances and mail art projects for the National Review of Live Art, Diskurs Festival and a site specific work for 40 performers in Moldova.
I am the Founder/Editor of the Hip Hop Dance Almanac and Ink Cypher, delivered the first Hip Hop Dance Writing Lab in Hong Kong in April 2025 and directed a new stage work - The Archive of Unbodied Letters - which premiered in Hong Kong in June 2026 .
I am an Organisational Dramaturg, Executive Director, Writer and Archivist and likes to rummage in other fields of thought to bring new combinations of things together. Over the last 10 years I have produced indoor, outdoor, digital work and development programmes in the performing arts in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and extensively across UK/Europe. End credits.
This all started with a spreadsheet in 2018.
A spreadsheet of the delegate list and email addresses of those who attended the Tokyo Performing Arts Market (TPAM) in Yokohama, Japan in February 2018.
As Executive Producer of Neon Dance at the time, Adrienne Hart (Artistic Director) and I had secured a commission from the Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial (Japan) for a new work - Puzzle Creature - with the help of Momoyo Homma. It would premiere in northern Japan in September 2018 alongside an additional participatory commission I’d secured for Adrienne working with Saitama Gold Theatre, a group of over 50s from the Saitama Arts Theatre earlier in September.
We decided to head to TPAM 2018 to connect with others from across Asia and invite programmers, producers and peers to the premiere later that year. I left that role with Neon Dance in early 2021, but that relationship with Japan and Momoyo has continued with multiple commissions and presentations from the likes of Setouchi Art Trienniale and the premiere of Living Body Museum a site-specific performance at the iconic Site of Reversible Destiny – Yoro Park in November 2025.
Prologue
In January 2023 I was in Japan for three months as part of a 12 month, round the world trip. I emailed Tomoyuki Arai who was on that spreadsheet five years ago to say I would be in Tokyo for a couple of weeks and did he want to meet up. I did not know Tomoyuki. In my email I offered a short synopsis of the artists and projects I was working on at the time to see if there was any interest and he replied with: “You might have found my email address in the contact list of TPAM2018. I belonged to the secretariat of TPAM.”
We didn’t meet during my time in Japan.
A couple of months later, Nadine Patel got in touch and said she was working with a choreographer (Gillie Kleiman) as part of the Another Route programme who wanted to know a little bit more about the dance scene in Japan. Nadine asked if I would have chat with Gillie as she was visiting Tokyo and wanted someone locally to help her understand the dance scene, the city and the context a little more. I emailed Tomoyuki again who was happy to help. In his reply he said that he’d read my work Remixing Criticism where I critique the choices and erasure of women in Hip Hop dance by Breakin’ Convention and Sadlers Wells and that he knew one of the people I’d commissioned to write a piece for Ink Cypher Round One in November 2021 - Godlive Lawani.
Everyone needs a Godlive in their life.
Part of what I’m trying to do with this is to create a record of my own experience of these events and see how dance exists across Asia in these spaces. I've been working in Asia ever since June 2016 when an EU referendum (Brexit) took place and the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Arts markets and meetings are very rarely documented from the inside or critically reflected upon outside of images and trailers which the host organisations prepare for funders. I want this text to offer a window to others who may not have been to them before, who might not understand the purpose of them or are just curious about where they might fit if they were to attend one in the future. My inbox is always open. I'm aware that some of what I say may affect my future relationship with these institutions. However, I think arts markets need to evolve; they are designed and are almost operating on the same model as they did 30, 40 or 50 years ago. If they're not open to some scrutiny and criticism (like the artists they present), then I question if they want to adapt and reflect what the world looks like now or just keep the status quo.
Hip Hop Dance Forum at Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting (YPAM), December 2023
Tomoyuki and I continued to exchange emails. He was also in conversation with Kath Papas (who I also met during my 12 month trip and had a lovely dinner with when I was in Naarm/Melbourne) to talk about holding a Hip Hop Forum at YPAM in mid December of that year. I originally proposed an idea where we hear from a producer (Kath), an artist (Nick Power – who was working with Kath at the time) and a writer (me) – a triangulation of what it’s like to work in Hip Hop dance from different perspectives. This didn’t get confirmed until October alongside an offer of free accommodation for five nights. We landed on the title of the session ‘Hip Hop dances in, or in proximity to, contemporary dance’ at the end of November and it wasn’t until 10 days before the event that the final panel member, Godlive, was confirmed. Godlive was the venn diagram of the three panel members. A producer, a dancer and a writer and she was also attending YPAM that year. The 45 minute duration of the session didn’t allow us enough time to get into the depths and complexities about the proximities – but I reiterated points made by Ink Cypher commissionees about the extractive behaviour of a lot of contemporary dance institutions. It was the Japanese choreographer and Ink Cypher Round One contributor Takao Baba, (who now lives in Germany), who wrote about The Recognition of Street Dance in Germany and how “streetdance on theatre stages is made by cultural institutions and contemporary choreographers in Germany.”
As I had not been to an Asian performing arts market/meeting/industry event for over 5 years, my active network was weak and I didn’t know (m)any people at YPAM. Godlive was a boon. She has spent a lot of time working internationally in Asia, Mexico and Europe, her networks are strong and she’s deeply respected. She introduced me to dozens of people at YPAM 2023 in a very generous way, bigging up my practice, the artists I work with and the type of work that I do. We hung out, ate many tasty meals together and reconnected each night at the “Late Night Meeting Point” aka the Amazon Club. Our connection has grown since 2021 and having only met up once in Europe in five years, we continue to see each other at different events in Asia (we met up most recently in Hong Kong in January 2026 and took a trip to the Shari Shari Kakigori House). It’s this openness and kindness demonstrated by Godlive and the community of independent producers who operate in the international ecosystem that sustains me during an increasingly difficult times for producers in England and other small minded, nationalist landscapes.
Panel Discussion: Hip Hop dances in, or in proximity to, contemporary dance at YPAM November 2023, published on YouTube by PARC, December 2023.
Arts markets are extremely well documented because there’s so many official photographers present. Part of what each organisation has to do is report back to their funders and demonstrate who was present. Here’s a carousel of images taken by Ryusuke Ohno of our panel discussion at YPAM 2023. As I was researching this piece I also discovered a review of the event written by Hiroyuki Takahashi for Real Tokyo which featured a photo of Godlive, Kath and I in various states of networking at the opening reception at Sojiji-temple.
Photo by Hideto Maezawa at YPAM 2023 Reception at Sojiji-temple featuring Ian Abbott, Godlive Lawani and Kath Papas, Yokohama, Japan, December 2023.
The performance from YPAM 2023 that stands out for me, was the only work that was programmed by YPAM under the “Direction” programme. The Japanese Ideology by OLTA. Most of the other performances are part of YPAM Fringe and are a pay to play. Artists have to hire a venue, promote their work and market themselves, hopefully attracting some of the international delegates to come to their events – it’s like a cooler and smaller version of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with waaaaaay better food options. There was an awful (limited technical skill, no dramaturgy and conceptually thin) Danish Hip Hop / popping show called Transhumanist by Next Zone which demonstrates that if you have the money or financial support from your government or arts council, you can access these events and programmers.
In 2025 YPAM was 30 years old; it's the oldest of the PAMs and set the blueprint (PAMS in Seoul was inspired by CINARS) for how things could be done in the international performing arts networking space. At the end of March 2026, Hiromi Maruoka stepped down as Director – a role she has undertaken since 2005 - here’s a statement on what’s next and how the next edition will take place in February 2027. YPAM started life as TPAM, taking place in Tokyo from 1995 and moved to Yokohama in 2011, changing its name to YPAM in 2021. Here’s some background of the early days of TPAM and an interview with former YPAM director Hiromi Maruoka.
Would I go to YPAM again? In a heartbeat. It's the goldilocks event; not too big and not too small, but with enough history and credibility and the team knows how to attract and look after international delegates.
Is it one of the best places to discover new, emerging or experienced dance companies and artists from Japan or internationally? No, because it's an open market and there's very little curational control. Anyone with resources can attend.
Busan International Performing Arts Market (BPAM), October 2024 - Part I
On Thursday 9th May 2024, I received an email at 4am with the subject heading: “Invitation to the 2024 Busan International Performing Arts Market.”
After some initial research, it was clear that this BPAM (4-8th October 2024) would be the second edition after the inaugural one in 2023. This piqued my interest. What is something like at the beginning? How does a performing arts “market” create an identity, find its shape or differentiate itself from others in the international ecosystem? Where are the frictions or problems in such a young event? I accepted the invitation because in an act of strategic Korean market alignment (or pure organisational coincidence?), Performing Arts Market in Seoul (PAMS) would happen directly after BPAM and so for me, it was worth travelling to Korea for two consecutive “markets” and they offered to cover five days of accommodation in Busan.
During the elongated email exchanges around hotel booking, K-ETA and arrival in Busan, I mentioned that I was part of a panel at YPAM 2023 and offered (in June 2024) three areas that I could present on during the programme if it were of interest to the Artistic Director – Mr Jong-Ho Lee - and the programming team. A spot in the “Delegate Pitching Session” of 5-7 minutes with a 3 minutes Q&A was confirmed in late September and so I started to prepare a presentation of the different artists and projects I was working on at that time.
There were too many emails in the two weeks before the event with information about bus schedules, BPAM Date sessions, multiple updates to the 75 page programme booklet and our arrival in Busan (again). This didn’t bode well. As a delegate, I only want to receive 2 or 3 separate emails in advance with all the attachments on the same thread as it makes it easier to refer to and download, rather than having to trawl through dozens of email threads.
The email exchanges were a harbinger and somewhat mirrored the live event. It was organised in a very inefficient way. As a set of international delegates moving round the city on shuttle buses, we were spending so many hours on the road, often stuck in traffic, leaving no time to eat (there was no scheduled time to eat lunch every day) and we were constantly moving between venues to participate in the programme.
At least this was one way to meet the other delegates and ensured I got to know the likes of Lynn Fu (China), Teet Kask (Estonia), Katja Somrak (Slovenia), Sarun "Top" Pinyarat (Thailand), Sophia Herzog (Germany), Sophie Sohyun Kim (Korea), Wanda Puvogel (Switzerland), Franki Raden (Indonesia) and Cyrus Khambatta (USA).
90% of the work I saw at BPAM 2024 did not belong in an international showcase. It was not ready and it was not good enough for a national showcase. The BPAM 2024 Choice for Dance was Gornisht by Roy Assaf Dance (Israel) adapted to include 5 Korean dancers - and again, I have no idea (well, I do have some theories) how or why this work was chosen. It is so dated choreographically. Why would this be your headline piece of international dance programming in your second ever event? This choice and the quality of performances in 2024 has the potential to damage the companies presenting work as well as the artistic reputation of BPAM.
One of the positive things about this second edition of BPAM was the number of international delegates attending from outside Asia (who were also shuttle bussing with me) which was around 30-35. This meant I could get to know people a little better as we were spending 12+ hours per day together with repeated bus shaped interactions.
Photo of Ian Abbott - taken from a Korean news website - presenting the work of Extant at BPAM 2024, Busan, Korea, October 2024.
When I presented to a room of 50 Korean and international peers in the Delegate Pitching Session, I absolutely stacked it getting onto the stage. There was a large step up and I made a huge crash as I misjudged my footing. It did me no harm though, or it might have been my pink panther dungarees, as I was photographed and featured in a Korean news article and round up about BPAM. In a beautiful act of international solidarity (or pure personal coincidence?), Teet (who was presenting after me) also fell up the same step at the start of his presentation, so I didn’t feel so bad and we laughed about it afterwards...on the shuttle bus of doom.
Why would I expect the second edition to be good? When an artist makes their second work or a junior doctor completes their second diagnosis or you make a dish for the second time – it’s never going to be perfect. We/they are all still in our learning stages and it is never going to be as refined as something that has happened 10 or 25 times. I wonder how many of the staff and how much of the knowledge from BPAM 2023 to BPAM 2024 was retained?
In some ways, this second edition felt like starting again, and as a first time visitor, I wonder about the experiences of the delegates from 2023.
Attending PAMs is an accumulation. You get more confident and better at them the more you go. I might know 10 people at the next one and then I begin to see those familiar faces, which puts me at ease. I would take on a Godlive role for others who are new to these events who might be slightly intimidated by not knowing anyone. As one of the few, independent UK representatives at these events it forces you to be social and start conversations; I don’t have that international solidarity net of national peers who can afford the time (or have the financial support from their government/arts council) to be present at these events. At BPAM I knew some people and I was hanging out a lot with the wonderful Square (Aoteroa / New Zealand) who creates an unofficial Supper Club whenever he attends these events. I also met Square in person in Auckland on my round the world trip and if he is attending one of these events, make yourself known to him, because not only is a wonderful producer with a very dry wit, he has a brilliant knack of finding very tasty places to eat late into the night.
My main issue with BPAM 2024 was that there was no acknowledgement that the brutal schedule, poor planning and seeing dozens of undercooked shows in four days (and not leaving space for food and discussion) is not the best way to foster international relations. It doesn’t create the right conditions to see Korean work in a good light and consequently you won’t want to invite work or artists to your own country. One of the things nobody mentions is if you put people in warm, dark spaces who have travelled 12+ hours across multiple time zones and they've had less than one day to acclimatise, jet lag will bite, necks will bounce and suddenly you jolt yourself awake and realise you’d missed three shows in the last 30 minutes. I was not part of the bouncing neck club. I’d arrived in Korea the week before to head to Sokcho for some hiking in the Seoraksan National Park and so my time zones were already aligned.
Would I go to BPAM again? Yes, because I want to know how it evolves, changes and learns in future editions.
Is it one of the best places to discover new, emerging or experienced dance companies and artists from Korea or internationally? No.
First slide of Ian Abbott's Pitch Deck at BPAM, Busan, Korea, October 2024.
PAMS - Performing Arts Market in Seoul - October 2024
PAMS is a soulless, capitalist, mega performing arts market that feels so out of tune with how people who I value in performing arts operate. The 2024 edition was headed by someone who had created a (insert your own adjective here) working environment that a number of experienced and respected producers left. This was the result.
PAMS do this thing where they send “newsletter” emails and social media posts in advance of the event with head shots, names and the titles of some international delegates are attending who they believe are attractive to other attendees. It’s an attempt to create a sense of FOMO and whiffs of legacy thinking and a deeply hierarchical (read male) behaviour. “Look at all these important people attending our event, don’t you want to be here and be important too?”
Whilst quite a few of the BPAM 2024 international delegates travelled north to Seoul for PAMS and we continued to chat about enforced convenience store diets and the shuttle bus of doom, I was excited to meet SooHye Jang (Korea) in person. We’d exchanged emails many times and are both working with visually impaired and blind artists in Korea and the UK. She very kindly introduced me to Hoyeon Lee, the producer behind Unseen Turmoil by Elephants Laugh who I met and she managed to get me in to listen/watch an audio described performance for non-Korean speakers of Unseen Turmoil on the 10th October – which was being performed in Seoul Performing Arts Festival.
PAMS is too big (the delegate list has 1144 people with 966 from Korea and 178 international delegates), aggressively polite (I was man-handled by some insistent FOH staff to take my seats a full 15 minutes before the advertised start time of a performance) and it’s almost impossible to make meaningful connections. It is glossy, slick and impersonal. If an AI was to create the template for an event – PAMS would be spat out. I didn’t meet one member of the KAMS team (the organisation behind PAMS) during my time and I felt like an invisible cog in a corporate event.
On the plus side it did introduce me to one of my new favourite bands – Chudahye Chagis – who were part of the PAMS Choice music line up. Their 40 minute set entitled A Funky Night With Guardian Spirits was the artistic highlight of both Korean market places. They describe their genre as psychedelic shamanic funk and I headed to the PAMS booth the next morning to see if I could buy some of their music; I got a CD of their album Underneath the Dangsan Tree Tonight which has not left my car stereo for the past 20 months. The connective highlight of PAMS was an off-PAMS independent producer focused event created by a group of all female Korean independent producers – and I got to know about this because of a WhatsApp from Godlive. It was only here that I felt like I was in a room with my people.
Photo of Godlive Lawani, Sophia Herzog and Ian Abbott with Chudahye Chagis at PAMS 2024, Seoul, Korea, October 2024.
One of the things that is clear and transparent from PAMS and BPAM is that Korea has money to export their artists. They can, will and have been paying for the majority of costs of travel, freight, accommodation for one person shows or large scale ensembles for many years. This is why there are so many Korean seasons and Korean performing companies operating internationally. It’s not because they make better work, it’s because they have made a committment to a decade + long strategy, have a government that wants to sustain the Korean Wave (Hallyu) and build on the surge of popularity of branding anything with a K in front of it. For the 23/24 budget The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced 892,500,000,000 krw (£458,500,000) just for promoting Korean culture throughout the world. Sometimes, if an international venue or festival wants to programme/take a work from Korea, then they have little choice over what that work is. It is often determined by which dance company has support from the cultural foundations or the Ministry of Culture.
PAMS celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2024 and it is run by Korean Arts Management Service (KAMS) which was launched as a government initiative to boost Korean performing arts’ international presence. You can read this interview from 2006 with the first director of PAMS (Lee Gyu-Seog) to understand the origins and ambitions of the event and then this interview in 2010 with (Woo Yeon), Head of the International Exchange Department at KAMS to see the growth in those first four years.
Would I go to PAMS again? No. Not a chance. Never.
Is it one of the best places to discover new, emerging or experienced dance companies and artists from Korea? Maybe. Internationally? No.
BIPAM – Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting - March 2025
It’s a subtle linguistic shift. This is a meeting, not a market. People are not here to transact, to sell or subscribe to the capitalist hierarchies of PAMS, they are here to meet. Meet each other, meet the work and meet the city of Bangkok.
The core team of BIPAM is an all-female collective of arts managers (Sasapin Siriwanij, Artistic Director, Varissara Borkird, Executive Director, Siree Riewpaiboon, Assistant Artistic Director, Peangdao Jariyapun, Project Manager / Communication and Kuntara Chaicharn Head of Operation) who are active in the inter/national performing arts ecosystems. They operate their own portfolio and understand the current cultural trends in SE Asia and the rest of the world. I see Sasapin everywhere. Literally everywhere. She is visible at festivals in Europe, Asia and North America and is one of the loveliest people.
BIPAM had an open call to propose discussions and after hanging out with some of the Singapore delegation at PAMS, I messaged Shai (Mohamad Shaifulbahri) to see if he would be interested in proposing a co-presentation looking at producers networks and how they operate. He is a member of Producers SG (a network for producers in Singapore) and I am a member of PAMPA (a network of performing arts producers based in Europe). He got back in touch to say that Freya Waterson and Jin Yim from Asian Producers Platform had also been in touch proposing a similar session, so it made sense to propose a trio of producing networks.
The pre-event and in-event emails and communication were clear, precise and helpful. It felt like they were treating us like adults. If you’re attending an international arts meeting, the likelihood is you can make your way from the airport to your hotel. BIPAM is also not afraid to have a political voice, which made the other markets feel shallow and businessy in comparison. BIPAM would send emails out to us about political issues and they have a clear ask of international delegates who can afford to pay more for their ticket (they can come in at a sugar daddy price). The work they programme is also inherently political. Finally. Work that is programmed with some integrity and there was no art for arts sake - which is often the mainstay of the majority of the other East Asian markets.
With seven programmed performances and a single track of activity, there was little chance of missing out on sessions or performances. There was one limited capacity production (Manual by Adam Kinner and Christopher Willes) which I managed to see, but on the whole you could see everything if you wanted to...and you got in the queue early enough
By this stage, my fourth event in 16 months, it was becoming clear that there were a number of consistent faces who are present at a lot of the East Asian events, but a lot of the European and North American people I had met previously were not at BIPAM. Why? I was one of less than five people from Europe and I spent time with people, new to me, like Mimi Lam (Hong Kong) and reconnecting with Giulia Poli, who works for the Asia-Europe Foundation. I was curious about BIPAM because so little SE Asian work is programmed in the UK in terms of dance. During my time with Neon Dance (in collaboration with Sebastian Reynolds) we worked with Pichet Klunchun, Great Lekakul and Pradit Saengkrai on the Mahajanaka Dance Drama, which toured several venues in the UK, but it’s hard to pick out work from SE Asia regularly touring to the UK. If British programmers and festival directors don’t attend events like BIPAM then how is that touring going to happen?
BIPAM is different (and better) than the markets. It’s a boutique event. It’s thoughtful, personal, political and a space to feel at ease and released from the pressure of a buy/sell dynamic. With less than 150 delegates moving round the entire event, you have the ability to connect with people. But. It felt like capacity was being stretched and the event/venues were almost bursting at the seams. I wonder how they will manage this for their next event in 2027, as I’ve no doubt more people will want to attend. If it opens itself up further and becomes a bigger meeting point for exchange across SE Asia, how can it maintain that perfect boutique size and quality of programme?
As a meeting it has a clear benefit and a route into European markets for the artists presented, including; Juggle and Hide (Seven Whatchamacallits in Search of a Director) by Wichaya Artamat / For What Theatre in collaboration with DuckUnit which presented at Wiener FestWochen2026 in Austria and Holland Dance Festival in the Netherlands in June 2026 and RIDDEN by Leu Wijee and Mio Ishida performed for the first time in Europe at KFDA in Belgium and SPRING Festival in the Netherlands in May 2026.
Photo by Michael Li of Mohamad Shaifulbahri , Freya Waterson, Jin Yim and Ian Abbott on the 'International producer's networks in Asia and beyond' panel at BIPAM, Bangkok, Thailand, March 2025.
Our table session was called: ‘International producer's networks in Asia and beyond’ and this is the first time I’ve been “beyond”. Again, this re-emphasis that I was the other was refreshing as the UK has such a strong history of othering others. It was great to share the session with Jin, Freya and Shai and learn more about APP Camp and Producers SG. I spoke about the history of PAMPA, the survey results, the resources we have available and our forthcoming residency in June 2025 that we were about to host in Torgny, Belgium. There were a number of other burgeoning country specific producer networks that were in their early days and we invited others in the room to say if they’re building something so that others might come and find them across the event.
The only issue I had with BIPAM was there was a “reply guy” at the event and he took to his Instagram stories multiple times after our panel to say: “I find panels with producers and presenters actually quite boring because a lot of the discourse is about the vocational and they just end up talking shop among themselves. It’s so insular and masturbatory.” He then went on to fill a series of stories that degraded producers, diminished those that called themselves creative producers and how he was disturbed by the implicit claim of authorship when producers say, “I produced this work.”
I mentioned to Top that I was coming to BIPAM and we went for a dinner at Jaekoy, where he introduced me to his niece Belle, who was an Assistant Producer at BIPAM. She mentioned a performance that was happening in Bangkok that was not part of BIPAM that I should attend if I liked musicals. Women With A Time Machine by Anti-Thesis was on this tiny stage and I experienced a non-binary musical sang entirely in Thai with English surtitles and it was one of my greatest theatrical experiences of the year.
Photo by Ian Abbott of Women With A Time Machine by Anti-Thesis at PoA White Box, Banglok, Thailand, March 2025.
These are some of the reasons why I enjoyed BIPAM, why I valued it and why it was most relevant to me: it was created by producers, who are active in the field, who know what it means to produce an event successfully and how to treat people at all levels. I’d paid to be here, my flight, accommodation and registration fee. In terms of the work presented, it felt like it was here on merit, rather than because the government of country X will pay a very mediocre man to present his old, dull work. The fact that BIPAM worked with Duemdum Craft Cola to create an event-exclusive flavour to refresh delegates during the humidity of the Bangkok days and nights meant I loved it that little bit more.
In 2026, BIPAM is 10 years old and here’s an interview with BIPAM founder. BIPAM returns in 2027.
Would I go to BIPAM again? Throw me on the back of a Bolt, pray for my knees and get me there pronto.
Is it one of the best places to discover new, emerging or experienced dance companies and artists from SE Asia? Yes.
BPAM – Busan International Performing Arts Market - Part II (with added Who’s Next?) – September 2025
On Tuesday 1st July 2025, I received an email at 8.01am with the subject heading: “Invitation to the 2025 Busan International Performing Arts Market.”
I mentioned in my reply that I’d be unable to attend this time without some financial support as the dates of BPAM no longer aligned with PAMS and other Asia specific events, so it would require a specific journey for this event only.
On Friday 11th July 2025, I received an email at 3.22am with the subject heading: “Invitation to WHO'S NEXT in Seoul — September 20–23.”
Who’s Next? is a platform for introducing early stage Korean dance artists to the international stage and is connected to SI Dance Festival. Mr Lee Jong-Ho was the Artistic Director of BPAM 2024 and 2025 and has been in charge of SI Dance festival for many years. So with the offer of support of accommodation in both Seoul and Busan as well as a contribution towards my airfare, I travelled back to Korea for a slightly different double bill than in 2024.
As part of Who’s Next? there were 24 international delegates including: Mina Wang (Taiwan), Eddie Nixon (UK), Jasmine Poon (Hong Kong), Jarmo Penttila (France), Kasumi Adachi (Japan), Wilfried Souly (USA) and Aguibou Bougobali Sanou (USA). It was a good number and over the course of the four days and 35+ shows we had time to exchange, talk about the work and understand more about the local context. We were looked after, fed well and shuttled gently through the city by International Relations Team Producer Ceren Özcan. I was impressed with the hospitality. However, the tonal whiplash and conceptual naivety I got from the dance showcases was strong. So many of the dancers at Who’s Next? had a turn it up to 11 technique, but are only able to turn it on or off. There was little subtlety or nuance in how they presented.
We were asked to reverse pitch and offer feedback to some of the artists, but when I asked “Why did you make this show?” 95% couldn’t answer the question (in English) and their project descriptions felt like they’d sent it through a poetic filter on Chat GPT. My highlights were MOO.SOK by Choi Jong-In and Kabazitis by Yoon Chae-young. Running alongside Who’s Next? – we were invited to a couple of performances at SI Dance festival; Unseaming by He Jin Jang Dance (which was compelling and might fit well in nottdance) and SUBVERTED ANATOMICAL LANDSCAPE by Bad Spicy Sauce (which was one of my top five, worst dance works I’ve ever seen).
There was another issue quietly circulating around SI Dance relating to the publicly communicated reasons why the performance Batty Bwoy by Harald Beharie was no longer performing at the festival. SI Dance issued this statement in Korean on the 25th September 2025 after originally claiming it was a “personal issue” and now there's no trace of the work on the SI Dance website. However, some traces remain on the Arko Theater site where it was due to perform. Mosaic: Korean Campaign for the Cultural Boycott of Israel hosted a press conference and read this statement in Seoul on behalf of Beharie.
Beharie also made this statement: “We have decided not to perform Batty Bwoy tonight at SI Dance Festival in Seoul, Korea. This decision follows our discovery that one of the festival’s performances was supported by the Israeli Embassy and that an embassy representative was present at the table during the opening press conference, seated next to the festival director...we acknowledge and appreciate that the festival took action and withdrew the Israeli state funding after we raised our concerns. This reminds us that speaking up can matter. However, the presence of Israeli state sponsorship and political figures had already compromised the conditions for a safe and meaningful collaboration...Our intention is not to attack SI Dance - they engaged in dialogue and took concrete steps, but we feel it is necessary to publicly share our reasoning for withdrawing from the program.”
During my time in Seoul, I reconnected with the theatre director/performer Jian Woo (who I'd first met at PAMS in 2024) and she took to this wonderful and weird underground cellar bar that felt like it was designed for monks and with a surname of Abbott, I appreciated the crossover. I also visited Emilia Lee and got a tour of the brilliant Modu Art Theater – a specialist venue in Seoul for disabled artists. We first met at PAMS in 2024 when she was on a booth sharing the work of Pansori Puppets and then again when she came to Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2025 as part of the Korean delegation who participated in the Momentum programme.
BPAM had definitely upped their game in terms of organisation, delegate venue HQ choice and the number/seniority of international guests - with over 100 international delegates and 200 from Korea attending this time. The organisation was a lot better in the run up and we spent less time on the shuttle bus of doom. It was great to reconnect, eat with and talk with folks who came last year like Teet and Sophie as well as a lot the folks from Who’s Next? who continued on to Busan.
As I’d been to BPAM the year before, I offered to get involved in some of the professional sessions (remember #BeMoreGodlive). This time I presented on the successes of Extant at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2025 as part of the Open Loop programme and participated in two of the “Just 10 minutes” 1:1 Business Meeting Programme, where I got to meet dozens of artists and companies in 2 x 2.5 hour sessions over two days. My participation in both of these events was confirmed on September 14th and the event started on September 24th. One of the things I noticed in these 1:1 sessions is that the people would just talk at me. Some brought gifts, lots of people brought printed material and folders and others spent 75% time showing a video. There wasn’t any attempt to build any rapport and no-one asked about my particular context or what I was interested in.
The work from Korea was better this year, including The Ongals (Korean clown babies who do slapstick and beatboxing) and Departure by Long & Short Company (a one-person horse automata with great lighting show inspired by Franz Kafka).
Photo of Teet Kask and Ian Abbott at the BPAM 2025 delegate centre, Busan, Korea, October 2025.
The Open Loop panel (which had four speakers) I was part of featured Elia Einhorn who spoke about his work as a record producer working with the Kronos Quartet + The Hard Rain Collective work on the Hard Rain and he gifted me a copy of the book he'd worked on called 21 Sober - a compendium of essays from sober musicians. We were meant to have 40 minutes each, but the first male panel member spoke for 65 minutes (our moderator Casa Kim – who is the new Artistic Director for BPAM 2026 – did not intervene) meaning the second speaker – Laura Colby (President of the Elsie Management talent agency) didn’t start her session till 20:18.
I enjoyed learning about The Middle Woman Podcast – A Roadmap to Managing The Performing Arts and the intricate realities of the visa, planning and venue needs for a tour in the US. When I got on stage, there were still a good number in the audience including people from the Avignon Festival, MASA and from venues and festivals across Asia, North America and Africa who heard about the impact Extant had made working with ZOO Venues at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe to make their entire programme accessible to visually impaired audiences. However, at all of these events I’d attended over two years there had been little to no presence of disabled artists, disabled delegates or disabled audiences. Why is that?
Would I go to BPAM again? Yes. They had made significant organisational improvements and the artistic choices were much better in 2025.
Is it one of the best places to discover new, emerging or experienced dance companies and artists from Korea? Maybe. Internationally? No.
We're almost at the end. We're definitely at the end of the markets and meetings, but there's two other events I attended in Asia in this same period which are worth documenting.
No Limits – International Symposium, Tai Kwun, Hong Kong, 9th March 2025
Six months earlier I visited the first international symposium hosted by No Limits in Hong Kong. I decided to start my Asia trip in Hong Kong for this event before heading onto Thailand for BIPAM and then back to Hong Kong to deliver the first Hip Hop Dance Writing Laboratory. Across the course of the day, which had 5 panels and 1 performance, I was surprised by how few disabled people from Asia were present in the audience or on the panels.
Whilst it’s always lovely to hear from Claire Cunningham and Caroline Bowditch who’re eloquent, insightful choreographic and disability justice lighthouses in this field, I think the only disabled artist from Asia who was on a panel (via video) were the K-pop idol trio – Big Ocean. They use Korean Sign Language in their songs and each of their members have hearing loss.
There were a number of countries and presentations on offer talking about their work with disabled people including: Dr Alice Yuk, BBS, JP, CEO of Ebenezer School & Home for the Visually Impaired in Hong Kong, Angela Tan, Executive Director from ART:DIS, Singapore, Shinzo Okura, CEO, CoCo Diversity Entertainment Inc. from Japan and Armani Shahrin, Founder of NakSeni & Inclucity.my, Malaysia – but there was a real lack of disabled artists from Asia on the panels.
Maybe it’s because I work with brilliant disabled artists and leaders every week at Extant and the UK is still the leader in this field, but I was surprised to hear a panellist say: “We don’t have professional disabled artists yet” and “They are not good artists and there are no thinkers or producers who want to make a project.” This is your job as organisational leaders. Build the infrastructure and employ disabled people to do the work. Platform disabled perspectives, pay disabled people to be present, and do not speak for them.
Asian Producers Platform (APP) Camp – Kaohsiung (Taiwan) and Okinawa (Japan) – November 2025
The final part of this travelogue is a camp, where "camping" is not required.
APP is a peer-to-peer network, sustained by a voluntary planning team of members that was founded in 2014 by a group of independent producers working across Asia. It started with a goal of creating a strongly linked network of producers who could collaborate across the Asian region. Since then, APP has produced and delivered their flagship event, the APP Camp, nine times from 2014-2019 and 2023-25 (an international COVID pandemic interrupted the annual rhythm from 2020-2022).
APP Camp was conceived as a unique opportunity for participants to develop industry networks, explore producing as a creative practice, develop intercultural producing skills and foster alternative arts leadership perspectives and methodologies. APP is structurally informal, not based in a single country, relies on project funding to support each APP Camp and collaborates with local producers to design and deliver each camp. APP Camp 2025 was the biggest yet (61 participants) and it's most geographically ambitious (straddling two countries - Taiwan and Japan).
I was interested in it as a model because it wasn't run by a large corporate governmental institution and it seemed to offer a space for independent performing arts producers to come together and deepen their relationships. I had little idea about the content or the structure of the camp, but in the Summer of 2025 I was one of the PAMPA members who had co-organised our first week-long residency for performing arts producers across Europe in rural Belgium and I was keen to see/feel the similarities/differences of how both events ran and the impact it would have on my practice.
How do I, a producer who is not based in Asia, get to be part of APP Camp? Well, there's a secondary mechanism for attendance for producers outside the region, which is called a Camp Observer. Observers might include strategic partners or representatives of other industry bodies who might be interested in the APP model. However, like ALL participants (including the voluntary APP planning team), you have to pay to be part of APP Camp and cover your costs getting to and from the start and end points. Camp Observer attendance fee is usually USD $1,000 which is inclusive of all accommodation, meals, events and local transport, including inter-city/county travel that is part of the camp itinerary. However, because of a KPOP concert happening in Kaohsiung on the opening weekend of APP Camp, accommodation prices had skyrocketed and that USD $1000 actually increased to USD $1650 alongside my flight to Taiwan and a flight home from Japan.
Final APP Camp 2025 Evening Meal at Ryotei Naha, Okinawa, Japan, December 2025.
Having been present at the aforementioned markets, meetings and symposia meant I already knew and/or had a relationship with 25/61 people which helped ease the idea of "observer" vs regular participant. APP Camp - Kaohsiung was split into two parts and part one was not a good omen; the majority of first two days were spent together as 60+ people in a windowless conference room in the giant, UFO shaped National Kaohsiung Centre for the Arts (Weiwuying) being talked at by panel after panel and speaker after speaker alongside a tour of the venue and a visit to the Kaohsiung Music Centre. The highlights of these two days were a) meeting fellow camp attendee Fezhah Maznan and b) hearing from the charismatic Tell Chang, founder and co-member of the Taiwanese math-rock band Elephant Gym. I bought some CDs of their albums (you can check them out) and listening to Tell speak for two hours offering honest insights into the markets in Taiwan, China and internationally as well as ticket splits, fees and management deals for independent musicians and where the best place to really earn money is was (for me who doesn't work in music) interesting.
But just receiving talk after talk, data after data, is one of the ways that I begin to disengage; there was no room or space in this opening schedule to digest, discuss or even begin to build the threads and relationships of all the information we were receiving. Why am I here listening to all these other people when there's dozens of camp producers who I want to connect with and learn from?
Kaohsiung part two saw the camp split into 5 smaller, and more logistically manageable groups. Hello Group 3! Over the next five days, we would spend two days in the hands of Taiwanese producer, (Sun Ping), before a travel day to Japan, and that was followed by two days in the hands of Japanese producer (Amy Hiraoka). Ping and Amy had designed, curated and organised those four days for us and were supported by APP Planning Group members Fuyuko Mezawa and Cui Yin Mok who wrangled us, kept us pepped and ensured we arrived where we needed to on time.
Our schedules continued to be over-programmed with our two days in Taiwan looking like: a visit to Kaohsiung Literature Library, a talk from the curator of the Yellow Butterfly Festival, a 1hr drive to the Green Valley of the Yellow Butterfly, another 1hr drive to the studio of Walking Grass Agriculture, a 90 minute feast and presentation by Walking Grass Agriculture, visiting the Museum of Labour, a presentation by Shine Zone theatre, a walk through an old market, visiting the renevated Takao Ginza market, a 2hr presentation (with over 110 slides!) by the Director of We Do Group, a walk to Pier 2 art centre and a visit to Kaohsiung Experimental Theatre for a puppetry rehearsal.
Photo of Liu Hsing-You from Walking Grass Agriculture, his parents and APP CAMP 2025 Group 3 in Jiasian District, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, November 2025.
After a day transitting via coach from the South to the North of Taiwan to get a flight to Okinawa, we headed to Japan for the next two days which again left little space or time to think. Our schedule inculded: visit and tour of Naha Cultural Arts Theater, a trip to Uenoida (one of the two urban farms left in Naha), a sanshin performance and history lesson from Yoshimori Nakamine in the shadow of Shuri Castle, a talk from Miho Kawaguchi who owns the cafe/publishing house CONTE, a BBQ dinner and guesthouse experience hosted by Amy, a talk and visit to Sakaemachi Collaborative Bookstore, a talk and market visit from photographer and the youngest ever Naha City Councillor Asahi Fukuhara, a presentation by the Japan Foundation, all five group research sharings, a final delicious evening meal that was complete with traditional Okinawan dancing (the only dance encounter of APP Camp 2025) and an open karaoke session which Shai kicked off with an Oasis classic.
The highlight from these four days was meeting Liu Hsing-You (yoyo), hearing about how he's queering a farming nostalgia-informed practice through Walking Grass Agriculture and having his parents provide an absolute home made feast for this motley crew of 14 international producers. Looking at the agricultural iconography on the boxes of fruits which get distributed around the country and how his parents generate 600kg of mango a year from their two trees he hand screen printed 100 boxes with his parents mangoes in and made a limited edition artwork (he gave us a screenprinted tote bag with some of the same iconography). He also asked his parents to cross dress in a wedding photo and this got picked up by a prestigious gallery and they were invited to Kyoto. In the Q&A I asked his mum about what it's like to be part of this art work, and she gave some very dry answers about it being nice that it gets them to travel to Kyoto, but they are still worried that he doesn't have a proper job. One thing that I took away was a jar of her incredible sour plums (we had sampled them earlier in the feast alongside yams, taro (prepared in many ways) and tofu), and she said I was her first customer from the UK.
The choices made by Ping and Amy of who we met, where we visited and what we ate were great and if we had had double the amount of time in each place, then we could have really got into the politics, history and culture, but we stayed at the surface; it was quantity over quality and it was too much. Everyone was full. People were falling asleep during the sessions and we were never going to get a complete overview of each place, so why not take 40% of the content out and give us time for dialogue, to talk about the programme and to learn about each other? The other thing that began to bristle after visiting all these places/people was that not one of them asked who we were or what we did; we were a group of anonymous producers who were receiving their information. Ping, Amy, Fuyuko and Cui did well keeping Group 3 snacked up and hydrated; we were vocal about the intensity of the programme and at one point it felt like we were asking for culinary or hydration breaks every 90 minutes.
On the final morning we gathered together in a large circle (with the majority of the planning team staying outside of the circle) for some final reflections and in one exercise we were asked to give a one word response, some of those words were: tired, intense, need coffee, numb - mine was wrecked. I am someone with stamina, who can usually receive a lot of complex and new information, but there was a disconnect between the logistics and production of the event (things all happened, no one got lost and everyone was on time) and the emotional care and construction of the experience for participants.
To have produced nine APP Camps since 2014, independently, with limited financial support on top of their regular day jobs, practices and personal life/care responsibilites is to be applauded. No-one else has been/is doing this work. The impact that APP Camp has had over the last 12 years is immense; it has created a model that others have adapted/stolen/built upon, it has stimulated and inspired country-specific producer networks and events that have grown from connections made at previous camps and has created a space for dozens of performing arts producers to visit and briefly plug in to the practices and cultural infrastructure of other cities across Asia. However, I wonder if the model of APP Camp 2025 with the increased number of participants, the dual country focus and the difficulty of finding financial support means this shape and experience will be replicated in APP Camp #10?
The Market is Closing
One of the issues is the proliferation of international Asian arts markets, meetings and events, and the internal competition for attention and attendance. Everyone wants their event to be THE place that everyone must attend. But the reality is only those people with institutional or governmental support can go to (m)any of these type of events. To be present at these events, whilst there has been some support in terms of accommodation at some of the events, I have invested thousands of £ of my own money to be present in these spaces, because I see value in them and the people who are also attracted by their orbit.
It feels increasingly difficult, from an England perspective, to find any sort of support that enables a presence for any independent producer or cultural worker to attend these type of events. I'm a trustee of the Lisa Ullman Travelling Scholarship Fund and we provide financial support to individuals who wish to travel abroad to attend a conference, to pursue a research project or undertake a short course of study in the field of movement or dance through our main awards (we supported 13 people in 2026) each year. Fabric has a small programme of activity supporting independent dance artists and producers based in England to connect internationally (it supported 5 people in 2026). Whilst the British Council have their Connections Through Culture programme, but that's UK wide and the aim is to develop and deliver projects across a range of themes and art forms in specific countries.
I've found relatively few independent, English language analysis, archives or reviews about the performing arts markets/meetings in the Asia Pacific region (if you know of others, let me know and I'll add links the below). There's:
This short reflection published by Kelvin Wong who attended YPAM 2023
This review from Catherine Diamond who attended the online version of BIPAM in 2021
This one published by Julian Macdonnell in February 2020 about the value and purpose of the Australia Performing Arts Market
This one published by Man-Soo Cho in 2019 which looks at the industrialisation of the Korean performing arts with data from the first ten years of PAMS and how works were invited overseas
This one published by Juju Masunah in February 2017 which looks at the Indonesia Performing Arts Market (IPAM) 2013 and Performing Arts Market in Seoul (PAMS) 2015
For me, the best thing, the absolute best thing about all these events in Asia (and Europe) is the gathering of the people. Every encounter deepens a connection with people who fundamentally understand what you do. And that is important. There is still so much misunderstanding and undervaluing of the role of a producer in the UK; but here, in these spaces, you are with people who do similar things to you, who share the same frustrations and who nerd out and celebrate niche successes and balanced spreadsheets. That creates a shorthand which helps build alliances. When you see this group of around 125 (mainly independent) international people moving round the world and how they're producing work and building international trust and partnerships, it's inspiring and makes me realise, this is an ecosystem. They are the ones making it work and making the work happen with a wonderful set of knowledge, generosity and values that are consistently on show.
It's only by being together and getting to know these people over time that I've been able to host people who I now call friends in Wales and Scotland; these same and different people have also invited me into their homes and lives in Taiwan, Germany, Hong Kong, Romania, Japan, Belgium, New Zealand and Australia where we've spoken about dance, work and arts markets, but also about food, nonsense, love, salt mines, death and everything in between.
Without this social infrastructure I wouldn't have been able to co-create, with Laura Trocan (PAMPA member), an international online session for producers on the 9th July 2026 called You Are Not Alone - The Producers Edition: A Discussion on Loneliness, Working Together and How to Fill Each Other's Gaps. Laura and I talked about a dance project that we've worked on and I thought, who else could we invite? Up step Fezhah and Shai (this was their music choice) from Singapore who spoke about how they'd worked together on a different dance project. This sense of candour, documenting our practice through shared reflection diaries and being honest about how important it is that we continue to show up for each other highlighted the similarities across Europe and Asia and it made me feel a little less lonely and a lot more connected.