Goseong Ogwangdae Mask Dance Intensive- Basic Motions Continued

January 18th, 2011
I had a hard time waking up, but was still probably only the third person moving around. Every break time- like after meals- at least half the students take a nap. Breakfast had meat, so I couldn't eat it, and late lunch did, too (partially because lunch recycled part of breakfast), so I ended up going out to lunch by myself (at breakfast time I ate a carrot, rice and one of the two side dishes).

I video-taped the entire morning class, which was more of 이윤석 Yi Yunseok, the National Human Treasure for over an hour, then Changyeol worked with us on our motions, including reviewing everything carefully. At that point we'd learned all the way to the end of the basic motion set. Therefore after lunch we learned 덧뷔기춤 deotbuigi chum (deotbuigi dance). It's a really fun set of motions, fast moving, too. Yi taught it to us and then we worked on it was Changyeol as well, although Seongbeom couldn't keep from interjecting (since the dance is so fast paced and the leader is calling out directions and explanations and the count, causing Changyeol to work up a good sweat, it looked like he appreciated the rest). Then we were told the group would be divided again (there were 42 people there, we counted off and the odds and evens split into two teams) and we'd each group perform deotbuigi chum and the basic motion set. Yi was insistent that we had to work as one, a theme he was on all day. In the morning he would hit one student (진규 Jin'gyu) and then we were all supposed to say "ow" or fall over when he fell over and stand up when he stood up, etc. We were very strongly told to abandon or ideas of being from particular schools or clubs and just cooperate and perform with one mind. So the odds performed, then the evens, then we all danced together with a great release of 신명 shinmyeong. It was pretty awesome, everyone got heated up and even sweaty, and afterwards I for one was super high on the rush of the group energy.

After a short break we divided into a 꽹과리 ggwaenggwari and a 장구 janggu group and learned at least something about accompanying Goseong Ogwangdae and the rhythms that usually accompanied it. I took the janggu class, which was taught by Dongsu. At the end of the class I ran out and Changyeol drove me to the bus station so that I could go back to Seoul and see the stupid doctor who insisted that only Wednesday and only that particular time (2:30 pm) which means that I am losing basically an entire day of class at Goseong (since the bus takes over 4 hours to Seoul, if I left tomorrow morning the only advantage would be to have practice this evening but I'd miss advantages like sleeping in and changing my clothes and I'd basically spend the entire day on the bus. As this is, I hope to make it back for evening practice on Wednesday.