Karjam Begins Recording

May 12^th, 2011

On Thursday my only research related activity was to go to 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum class in the evening. However it was an extremely busy day because Karjam started recording his CD. I went to facilitate and translate and such, and it did take until late-lunch time before Karjam and the engineer, 오영훈, figured out how to work together. But the really cool thing was that they did figure it out, by the end of the day Karjam had recorded both of his a cappella tracks and two instrumental tracks for another song (but not the song) and I had written more than three pages of good solid work on my dissertation—important and almost inspired pages that will definitely (after editing) appear in the final piece!

At Bongsan Talchum엄하연 is back from giving her body a break (she has a persistent problem with her ankles). Quite a few people were absent but not 이병우 who did an interview for me during almost every break all class long. It was really amazing. He surprised himself by talking about things, telling his story, in a way he is not sure he ever did before. What was particularly striking about the interview, unfortunately, were the first few things he said before I noticed that somehow I had forgotten to press record. At the end of the interview I asked him a bit about modern dance and the current dance culture in Korea because in the morning I had been asked to write an article on a very short deadline for "Korea" a magazine distributed in Korean embassy and consulates in English speaking areas around the world. At first I thought the article content would be closer to my research, but it's really not. It's the cover article with three sections—only one can contain any real discussion of traditional dance (but it also is supposed to contain several other predetermined discussions), the other sections are an interview and an overview/introduction to dance related organizations. And the entire article has to be very positive and rosy-cosy "Visit Korea," there is no room for any sort of criticism in the article. Asking Byeong-u (a full time performer who sometimes performs modern dance) for a few comments will hopefully give me a chance to include that perspective in the final article.