All the Office Managers of the Mask Dance Drama Association Meet (and I get to attend!)

July 19^th, 2011

On Tuesday I met Kathy and 수미 Sumi from 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum class at Seoul Stn and we three caught the bus to 단국대 Dankook University together. Outside campus we found that 허창열 Heo Changyeol, 황민왕 Hwang Minwang and 유세정 Yu Sejeong were running late. We started on lunch first but ordered for them and ended the meal together.

The class went really well, particularly at first. Changyeol is one of the most charismatic people I know, and despite his lack of ability to speak English he did a brilliant job. First he introduced the four basic percussion instruments to the students and taught them to speak the four different parts to 자진모리장단 jajinmori rhythmic pattern. After that he gave them a chance to play each of the instruments in turn. Every single student played every single instrument, although at times this was somewhat painful to the ears, Changyeol kept a giant smile on his face and the students loved the experience. He also tried to communicate the basic idea of Korean dance, having them move in a circle with bended knees and raised arms and feeling and responding to the music. This was not so successful, but everyone had fun anyway. Afterwards Changyeol performed 문둥북춤 Mundung Bukchum from고성오광대 Goseong Ogwangdae. He was brilliant, of course, because he's one of the most talented mask dancers I have ever seen. Yes, Changyeol deserves the superlatives. Next was Hwang Minwang's turn in the spotlight. Minwang is much more quiet and reserved than Changyeol but he's an amazing artist. He's an isuja for Namhaean Byeolshin'gut (shamanic ritual), as a specialist in music, not as a shaman. He talked about folk songs from around Korea and sang selections of folk songs and then sang shamanic ritual songs from different areas as well as demonstrating the 태평소 taepyeongso. It was really great.

Sumi, Kathy and I were heading in a different direction than Changyeol and Minhwang who had to drive Sejeong home before they'd go back to Seoul, so we separated after class. I ended up walking around central Seoul with Kathy, we met up with her fiancé, Tim, who I also know from LA and had a wonderful dinner.

July 20^th, 2011

On my day "off" I was very fortunate to have been asked if I'd like to attend a meeting of all the office managers from all the mask dance groups in Korea—the meeting was happening at 은율탈춤 Eunyul Talchum's office in Incheon—and 김영숙, 탄종원 picked me up so we could go together. I received clear proof that I was widely trusted -- I was worried that although escorted to the meeting by Songpa Sandae Noli's office manager that I would be kicked out at the start or before sensitive discussion, however when we arrived (somewhat late) it was to a flurry of jokes about whether I was the Songpa Sandae Noli American-branch representative or if I represented the interests of all Korean mask dance dramas in America. I stayed for the entire five hour (including excellent lunch) meeting which in addition to painfully choosing the date for an all group inclusive festival also covered financial details pertaining to the association (I even left with photocopies specifying expenditures) and contained frank information sharing and strategizing for future performances and festivals. I was allowed to record the entire meeting, contribute views and fact check.

In the evening I met 정회정 Jung Hoijung for dinner and a work session in a café near her house—we ignored each other most of the time and worked intensively on separate projects. 

Three Days in Seoul

February 3rd, 2011
My friend Bonnie and her husband Curtis came and spent the night, so I made them dinner and we had a long Korean pop culture conversation. Otherwise I finished Photoshop on the photos from Goseong and transferred all the video to Karjam's computer and other book-keeping type tasks.

February 4th, 2011
I went to a concert at the 국악원 Gugakwon with Kimberely Hall in her capacity with the Asia Society, as the event photographer. However the seats weren't ideal for photography. Worse, though, was that the lighting in the hall was atrocious. The person I was particularly supposed to photograph, Jocelyn Clark, an American professor in Korea with amazing 가야금 gayageum skills, was lit with a spotlight straight down from above, so she had dark pits for eyes and her nose cast a shadow over her mouth—it's not pleasant for the audience to see a show lit like that, and definitely I was dissatisfied with the photos. When I met her after the show she said the lighting also made it difficult to see the strings. The rest of the show was moderately better lit, but none of it was very good.

The show itself consisted of six pieces of new music for Korean traditional instruments (usually). I have limited patience with such, in general, because for every good piece you hear quite a few bad ones. It is as if the musicians, composers, directors, etc. are all so bored with the traditional repertoire they're willing to try anything—but that doesn't mean it's good for the audience! The first piece was for five solo gayageum. No, that doesn't make sense. Why not just have one solo player do the whole thing? Why five? They alternated playing in a very unconventional way, taking the new techniques popularized by composers like 황병기 Hwang Byeonggi and then going way beyond into new territory. Chiefly, the piece was not melodic. I'm sure it must be beastly hard to play as nothing was predictable at all.

The second piece featured the 생황 saenghwang, an instrument that was described after the show by Kimberely American boyfriend Shawn as "you know, the bong," and indeed Hilary Finchum-Sung (who also attended with son Oliver), confirmed that it's filled with water. It was saenghwang, viola, cello and two violins. I honestly didn't feel that the music fell within the category of "Korean music" in any way at all, but I'm probably just being conservative. Honestly, to me, it sounded like the music to a movie montage about a person who was losing their mind and was committed to a mental hospital.


The third piece was one of the two I liked the most, it showed the promise of new compositions particulary through the interesting conversation between the 단소 danso and the 피리 piri and a lovely part where just the danso and아쟁 ajaeng were playing together.

The fourth and fifth piece were for full orchestra, the orchestra was seated in chairs (western), and wearing black and white (so western), with vaguely hanbok styling to the neckline, the women's outfits ended up looking more to me like Vietnamese clothes given that it was a slit skirt over pants. I have not much to say about either piece, they used some interesting additional instruments from western and other non-Korean areas, but the music itself didn’t captivate.



The sixth piece was in the broad genre of military music, powerful and aggressive with 나발 nabal horns, 태평소 taepyeongso and piri plus a lot of percussion. More than just the music, I enjoyed hearing the composer (who was also the conductor) talk a bit about his process before the piece began.


February 5th, 2011
I met Joji at the Electronics market and bought another voice recorder because the one I bought in August records at much too low of a volume to be useful. Even if the mic is practically in the mouth of whomever I'm interviewing. We then proceeded to the National Museum where we toured the Silk Road and Dunhuang exhibit.

At five "The Gwangdae" had a performance, the hall was crowded but 대천 Daecheon's wife helped us to find a seat. The show was fairly good.

사물놀이 samulnori, a singer, followed by 풍물 pungmul, followed by 이매 Imae from 하회별신굿탈놀이 Hahoi Byeolshin'gut Talnoli, followed by a lion's dance (the lion pretended to be a camel to great amusement), then a spinning disk performance and that was the it. The audience, especially the young children loved it. After the show I got to see everyone which was awesome. 가은 Gaeun also came to the show.

Still feel sick.

Day 2 of the Korean Mask Dance Festival

October 30th, 2010
I made it to the festival site before the first show started for the day. I walked up seeing my 고성오광대 Goseong Ogwangdae friend, 황종욱 Hwang Jong’uk but before I could say hi the director of 양주별산대 Yangju Byeolsandae had grabbed my face in both hands (which was sort of funny because she was in full costume with 한삼 hansam on her hands) she was so happy to see me.
“Wa, you’ve come all the way here!”
“Yes, hoijangnim, I’m really excited for the festival.”
“Are you coming to Yangju tonight?”
“Yes, I can come with this friend.” I said, reaching out to Hwang Jong’uk who was probably surprised to see me greeted so demonstratively. Then the Yangju director (김순옥 Kim Sunok) was surprised I knew him…). Of course at the end of the day when it was time to leave Hwang Jong’uk was long gone, but he’d been my back up ride, so it all worked out.

Today there was an announcer. Not just an announcer. A GREAT ONE. He was awesome. He knew a lot, and explained it concisely but in an engaging manner. He even looked perfect in 한복 hanbok and thick grey hair. He came out before Yangju Byeolsandae and between each show and did a great job, the best job of any announcer I’ve seen. On the way to Yangju I asked Bak Sang-un about him and he told that the announcer works for K.O.U.S. as an announcer and researches folk culture. I recognize his name, but I cannot place whether it’s from a publication or meeting him before or what.
Yangju Byeolsandae’s show was great. This time they had their musicians playing 해금 haegeum, 대금 daegeum, 태평소 taepyeongso and 장구 janggu along the back of the stage, somehow this placement changed the feeling of the show for me (usually they are to the side). I’ve already commented on their performances several times recently, one new thing that really stood out to me today was how the music changed and became quite melancholy after the concubine of the yangban is stolen away by a younger man.

The next performance was 통영오광대 Tongyeong Ogwangdae which of course I watched a week ago. Not that I didn’t enjoy seeing it again, I did. I feel like I’m memorizing all the member’s faces. Last time they came to Seoul the one member who is a friend of mine couldn’t come. I haven’t seen him since 2004 and I wanted to meet him face to face again, but when the show ended I couldn’t pick him out. That’s sort of embarrassing. We communicate a lot on the internet about mask dance topics. Fortunately in the evening at Yangju he came up to me (and he had a name tag on. I love name tags).

After Tongyeong was 은율탈춤 Eunyul Talchum. They are similar to 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum so I felt the order of the line-up made no sense at all. (Since Bongsan was after Eunyul). I did have to go to the bathroom during all these shows, by the way. But there was basically no break, so no lunch for me and I just left the video camera running and went to the can during the least interesting to me acts. Who knows I may find a surprise later. The audience was much larger than Friday, but they were considerably less responsive. Some foreigners wandered through, some of them even stayed and watched for awhile, but still during the Yangju performance MBC asked me to give an interview (uh, I’m watching right now…). During the Eunyul Talchum performance suddenly a bunch of workers came and told all of us sitting in the prime seats that we had to move because the wives and families of G20 delegates were going to come watch. To tell the truth I was pissed off. I should move after I’ve been sitting there for two and a half hours, arriving fifteen minutes before the first show to get the good seat? I should move for some diplomat’s family even though this is integral to my Ph.D. research and they’re just showing polite interest? I should move even though if they knew we’d been moved to make room for them they’d probably be embarrassed about sitting in the now vacant seats? I didn’t move. If someone wants to bend over backward to make the G20 come off well, that’s great. But I don’t think that their minders should do that by having them show up half way through a show, necessitating a scene to be cut short and the announcer to come out on stage again and tell everyone what was going on and introduce the next scene again (in Korean which none of the diplomatic families could understand and he’d already explained the whole mask dance before it started). They left before that scene was over. Oh well.

The last show was 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum. Their show started late. Even though Eunyul went over time (partially because of the G20 thing), Bongsan started fifteen minutes later and by that time a fair amount of the audience had given up and wandered towards the sounds of other activities in other areas. The Bongsan show started with the 사상좌춤 Sasangjwa dance and within a few moments it was apparent one of the four dancers did not belong with the rest. The dance is very slow, and though the movements are simple, it’s quite difficult because all four must be perfectly in sync with each other (and the small mask eye-holes, their telescope vision field, and the fact that the dancers aren’t always facing each other make that even more difficult). The rest of the show was fairly enjoyable, but there were several hiccups that someone like I could notice, if not a regular audience member. [Video excerpts from the Bongsan Performance]
Photos: Bongsan Talchum. The monk in yellow is No. 3, my favorite to dance as I often mention. The four white characters are the sa (four) sangjwa (novice monks). The guy with the lion is Mabu, different from monk 3 despite the similar costume. That's Halmi (grandmother) with the fan.





After the show I rode with 박상은 Bak Sang-un, as I already mentioned, to Yangju. Why Yangju? Because they were hosting the big meeting (and social) for the festival, with awards being given, a giant buffet, singing, dancing, drinking and speeches. I wanted desperately to go, and had felt very vindicated when I was invited (by 송파산대놀이 Songpa Sandae Noli first, then later by Goseong Ogwangdae and Yangju Byeolsandae). However, it turned out to be less useful for interviews and contacts than I had been expecting. Although I had some chit-chats with people the atmosphere was not conducive to interviews with anyone I didn’t already know well, and I didn’t have a bunch of new questions to ask the people I already do know well, so it was more of an opportunity to build up good feelings than anything else. I am happy I got to go (and I think my exposure in the room of 25 tables each seating around 10 people, minus the twenty or thirty empty chairs spread around the room although most of them may have been occupied by people who were moving around) will in the long run help me out. I got hugs and handshakes and a lot of smiles. The awards were done by the time we got there and most of the speeches as well. The different groups took turns going up on stage and singing and dancing to the amusement of all. I sat with 김명하 Kim Myeongha from Songpa most of the time, there were only four of us, Kim Myeongha, 김학석 Kim Hakseok (National Human Treasure) and 서병무 Seo Byeongmu (and of course, me). Seo was drunk and trying to speak English, hard enough to understand when he’s not drunk, so I was glad he was mostly not next to me. When our turn came up, instead of singing Trot (old people like it), a cheesy 70s or 80s ballad, or like the hip Goseong Ogwangdae team, a pop song (CLON), Kim Hakseok sang without a karaoke music track. Honestly his timing and general ability was severely hampered by alcohol. The other three of us had to do back-up dance. That was HARD. He was singing a traditional song, but without any adherence to a beat. At least one Yangju friend (김순홍 Kim Sunhong who is their seamstress extraordinaire) and one Goseong friend (이재 훈 Yi Jaehun with the long hair) got up and helped us out. I have a lot of observations on the behavior of the groups and various dynamics I observed, but some are not so flattering so I’ll keep those off the public blog.

Kim Myeongha dropped me at a subway station. Everyone else (except Kim Myeongha and I and whoever had left already) were going to spend all night partying in the hostel Goseong had secured, and I was invited, but Karjam would have blown a gasket if I’d even mentioned it. I know it would have really helped my long term relationship especially with Goseong Ogwangdae people, but I cannot neglect Karjam that much and he does feel very traditionally about his wife staying out even as late as I did.

Bongsan Class

October 11th, 2010
In the morning I went to meet Professor David Mason, a Korean culture expert who focuses on tourism related issues and teaches at 경희대 Kyunghee University. We had pasta and green tea and talked Korean Studies.

In the evening I went to 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum, a former attendee showed up with plans to come again every Monday, and with his arrival the one month ago almost entirely female (except for 원 중 Won Jung) group has become mostly male. Won Jung will hear if he made the second round audition on Friday. Class was uneventful, I was exceptionally low energy and so it seemed was everyone else. I talked with 현철 Hyeoncheol who resumed Bongsan practice last week. He looks about 22 but is actually 27 and in graduate school for music education, even better, his undergraduate was in 피리/태평소 piri and taepyeongso, and he is focusing on Korean music education, not just music in general. He can only come on Monday because he has a grad class on Thursdays.

After class ended I had a strangely long and interesting research-related conversation with the front desk/security guy at the training center (there are two of them, the one that was there was the younger one). It’s great when I can talk through ideas with random people, unfortunately not enough people know about traditional arts to an extent that a conversation can really get off the ground (and that’s why I’m doing this research!).