Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Most of a Week

June 13th, 2011
I went to Yonsei to get ready for my class I'll be teaching at Dankook University—I had to print a bunch of things and also find some books and copy certain chapters, all in preparation for making a kick ass reader. I estimate I should get it to the university by the beginning of July, so I still have a tad bit of time. That is good because the library is even lamer than I expected and I could not find some extremely key books—however I was able to use credit that had been on my card since 2006 (!!!) to do the copying in the library.

I barely had time to get home and get back out the door with my stuff for 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum.

At class we had a small turn out, a new high school student, 동호,  plus 윤식, 하연, 세준, 수미. We practiced the 7 of 8 monks in order, then did 애사당, 소무, 할미 and 사상좌.

June 14th, 2011
I got odds and ends done, but no real writing again. Argh.

Karjam and I went to an amazing 판소리 pansori performance in the evening at 풍류극장. The performance featured one senior singer, 송순섭 and two of his students (one an 이수자, one a 전수자), as well as two 고수 (accompanists for pansori), one for the master and one for the students. The show was really great, and Karjam loved it, too.

June 15th, 2011
I honestly am so far behind on updating this. I cannot remember anything special happening, I think I just worked on my conference paper the entire day.

June 16th, 2011
I worked on my paper for most of the day then at 8 we had to go to the studio to add the last of 고석진 Go Seokjin's percussion tracks to the CD. It was sort of frustrating. Karjam was in a poor mood and that impacted his decisiveness and also made him dislike almost everything. It was actually more than sort of frustrating. And since he was irritated at me, I couldn't (as I normally do) make some choices when he was being indecisive. I'm a very good tie-breaker. At 1 (in the morning) we were all exhausted and Karjam still wasn't happy, but we called it quits. Then Seokjin, Karjam and I went to a GS25 and had instant noodles, instant ddeokbokgi and kimchi from a vacuum-packed bag. No this was not my idea.

June 17th, 2011
I think I spent the entire day writing on my conference paper, increasingly freaked out that I wouldn't get it done.

In the evening I had 상모 sangmo class at Sogang University. It was awesome! Even though I haven't been able to have a class in a long time, today I was amazing! And I learned a whole routine to enter the stage (or the center stage for a solo) which will come in handy later on. Yay!

June 18th, 2011
I took the bus to near Songpa Sandae Noli and then sat in a coffee shop and worked on the paper until time to practice. Class was very sparse, just 함완식 Ham Wanshik, 이수환 Yi Suhwan, 함승헌 Ham Seungheon and me. Yi Suhwan was teaching the motions and since he and I had a falling out over him repeatedly changing the English on the 송파산대놀이 facebook page (please visit it and "like" it), even though I'm the native English speaker who writes about Songpa Sandae Noli in English, he ignored me and taught Ham Jr. while Ham Sr. drummed and I just followed along. He was teaching him the part of 노장 Nojang, the old monk, so that was actually kind of interesting. This is one of the two parts that Yi Suhwan jealously maintains control of and almost always performs. From a dance perspective it's the most difficult solo in the entire drama. The most interesting part of class was a debate between Ham Sr. and Yi about changing motions in the dance. The debate may go in the dissertation word for word (I wrote as fast as I could).

After class I went back near home, but stopped at Chan's Bros and wrote for at least a couple more hours there before I went home.

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