Everyone Watched a Mask Dance Drama Performance

July 21^st, 2011

At Dankook University the lesson plan for the day included showing the students the movie Seopyeonje which everyone should watch as it's fabulous, so I started out with a lecture orienting them to types of vocal music with extra emphasis on pansori (the subject of the movie). I think they really enjoyed it.

In the evening I met up with Kathy and Tim again and we went to the Dragon Hill Spa (찜질방) which was awesome, of course. They were quite impressed and really appreciative of the awesomeness that is Korean bathhouse culture.

July 22^nd, 2011

Prof. Hilary Finchum-Sung came to guest lecture to the class. Not knowing the route to Dankook University I met her at 강남 Gangnam Station and we took the bus together. This meant we had lots of time to chat, yay! She's far enough into her career to have great advice, but new enough to not have outdated information or have forgotten what you really need to know when you're at my stage. She gave a great lecture to the students—her focus was globalization in Korean music, talking about whether fusion is Korean music, for example, but she gave a good solid overview of Korean music before she got to the point of the lecture. Although I had taught the students lots of the same stuff, the reality is that they are being hit with tons of brand new words, an entire world of things they knew nothing about two weeks ago, so a solid well-organized review was great for them. Also she brought her 해금 haegeum with her and demonstrated different types of music on the instrument.  

For the end of class we discussed one out of two planned articles, then practiced 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum motions. The students are getting better and better. I rode back to Seoul with Hilary and went straight to 선릉역. I drank coffee and worked on my computer until it was time to meet Kathy. We briefly walked through the park at the royal tombs, then met Tim and ate dinner before the mask dance drama performance for the evening.

Not the best cell phone photo of Kathy

The performance was the third in this series where they are combining different arts on themes. The theme was 노장, the old monk. Oddly 북청사자놀음 Bukcheong Saja Noleum showed their monk dance, then we saw the 은율탈춤 Eunyul Talchum old monk scene, or the start of it anyway. It felt very choppy and artificial and honestly the other two were not displayed well in comparison... Last there was about an hour of 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum. The performance included the 8목중 8 dark-faced monks plus the entire old monk scene all the way through the shoe seller and 취발이 Chuibali. 8 students from Dankook had come (6 of mine and 2 others) and they all enjoyed it. After they show they took photos with some of the performers, then I said bye to my friends who were there and Tim, Kathy and I had a drink before saying good-bye until who knows when. 

Bongsan Talchum and Sangmo Class

March 7th, 2011
I took Aimee to experience the heaven of the Korean bathhouse (찜질방). She agreed it was heaven.

In the evening I took her to 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum class, mistakenly thinking she'd find it as much fun as me. She did not, however, join in, so I ended up feeling like I'd just dragged her along out of some pig-headed idea that it would surely be fascinating without stopping to think that she's not my mom (who even now is willing to find all my activities of at least moderate interest just cause they're something I like to do).

Class was non-standard as 김은주 Kim Eunju and the other Bongsan folks had a big important meeting going on, she stopped by once to see how we were doing, but we basically did it all on our own. 병호 Byeongho more or less led class, although 하연 Hayeon, 정현 Jeonghyeon and I helped out. 수미 Sumi did the accompaniment on 장구 janggu for the class, it was amazing how much harder it was to do with her drumming than normally, although she did get smoother during the class. Actually to be fair, Kim Eunju is known for being just an amazing accompanist for mask dancing, so perhaps what I was really experiencing was what a difference there is between someone beating out the 장단 jangdan (rhythmic pattern) and someone playing for dancers while producing the jangdan.

We went through each of the acts and then did the solos and the combined final dance for the eight dark faced monks. Of course I did monk 3. At the end of class we worked on the lion dance.


March 8th, 2011
After Aimee left I actually got back on track and did some serious writing/editing. It wasn't just having a guest that's more fun to hang out with than writing; it was also that until I woke up on Tuesday I hadn't felt fully physically healthy in an entire week.

I called 이종휘 Yi Jonghui to find out what time 상모 sangmo class would start and he said 6, but then when 현석 Hyeonseok and I arrived he said that due to the large number of college kids who were still in class until 6, we'd have to start at 7. So he taught just the two of us until nearly 7, when others started to show up, and kept class going until 9. Others were 지용 Jiyong (together weeks 3 and 6), 림한 Rimhan (last summer week 8 and winter week 3 and practicing all fall in Seoul), 효준 Hyojun (practicing in Seoul and at week 6 but not in sangmo), 성현 Seonghyeon (week 6). Class was tough. Partially because it was three hours, but partially because Yi Jonghui had us do the same motion over and over for almost the entire class. We were working on coordinating out 소고 sogo with the perfect sangmo motion, trying to get the hand motions right (not robotic) with the sogo is harder than it looks. We practiced almost the same sogo motion more than half the class, but we had different sangmo motions. One of which was to have us rotate counterclockwise instead of clockwise. My previous best was 10 rotations last night my rotations looked much better and I got up to 24, but I also pinched a nerve in my neck. Then the rest of the class was devoted to a sogo motion where you just raise and lower your sogo with the stick touching in the whole time. Sounds simple, I know. But I had to look left two (sogo down, up) and right two (sogo down, up) while spinning to each side and it was so frustrating. I never got it really right. At the end we switched our sangmo motion but kept doing the same sogo motion. I was pretty exhausted when we were done.

Jjimjilbang and Sangmo Class

January 4th, 2010
Karjam and I decided to finally go to the 찜질방 jjimjilbang (Korean spa/sauna). I love the jjimjilbang and even more I love the traditional bath house (a dying breed now that almost everyone has indoor bathrooms with hot water), but I kept being held up by wanting Karjam to have a Korean man to accompany him in the sex segregated areas the first time we went. We arrived around 11 a.m. and I bathed slowly, soaking in the various tubs of water after scrubbing, then scrubbing even more. Despite my leisureliness when I went to the public area of the jjimjilbang to wait for Karjam I had to wait –an entire hour- because he was enjoying the bathing area so much. There are snack shops and a restaurant and many interesting saunas and everything in the jjimjilbang. Finally at 3 Karjam decided to stay and I left. I wrote in Chans Bros coffee shop for almost two hours and then came home to eat a quick bite before heading to 상모 sangmo. When I left home I called Karjam, he'd left the jjimjilbang just a few minutes before. That was money well spent (ten bucks for entry including clothes to wear in the communal area, and towels. There is soap inside but I bring all my own shampoo, lotion, body scrubbing implements and so on).

Sangmo class was only 현석 Hyeonseok and I, again. 이종휘 Yi Jonghui was busy, so instead we had 변재원 Byeon Jaewon. He's a good teacher, too. They both are, though Jonghui is definitely more advanced. I got an incredible workout especially toward the end of the class when we were doing 양사위 yangsaui and suddenly he told us to change to 일사 ilsa (like a figure 8 in the air), which of course is just at the outside end of my current range of ability. It was actually pretty fun, I may become a good sangmo person, yet.