Baramgot Performance

July 14^th, 2011

Had class at Dankook University, the day started to feel like we were establishing a routine as a group, and we knew that we wouldn't have any more membership changes—our group is Amada, Caitlin (Theatre major), Chiayu, Hai, Abigail, Jessica (our only person with Korean heritage) and Alyssa. They're all really sweet. It's hard for some of them to do the type of reading I have assigned because they're not from the humanities, but they're all doing a great job trying. And they are learning the Bongsan Talchum motions faster than I expected, especially Hai.

In the evening I went to see 바람곳 Baramgot, a mixed fusion gugak group. Won Il is the artistic director and he plays 피리 piri and percussion for the group. There is also a 거문고 geomungo player, a 가야금 gayageum player, and a 대금 daegeum player, but the part that fascinates me and the songs I enjoyed the most were when they incorporated sitar (the sitar player also played percussion. The music was rather intellectual, and I definitely preferred certain pieces, esp. with the sitar, but it was all interesting. And there was a great guest performance by a group called 유희 spelled U-희(hee) which I think is stupid, but whatever. They're all Korean National University of the Arts graduates, all from the 연희학과 Folk Theatre Department. At the show I coincidentally ran into Lisa Kim Davis with a friend and also 기영 Giyeong. After the show I gave Won Il one of Karjam's CDs and we talked a bit more about him coming to play in Korea in October.

SNU to Sajachum

November 4th, 2010
In the morning I went to Professor Hilary Finchum-Sung’s awesome class on Korean music. Today was devoted to 시나위 shinawi and 산조 sanjo primarily. She brought in a bunch of students to play shinawi for us (this being shinawi as the group ensemble based on what was shaman-ceremony accompanying music), two stuck around to play sanjo (아쟁 ajaeng and 거문고 geomungo). It’s really awesome to be able to hear the music after Hilary’s contextualized it and explained it so well. Afterwards we ate lunch in the cafeteria together.

cell photo:

In the evening I headed to 봉산탈춤 Bongsan Talchum class, 장용일 Jang Yongil was teaching us again. Us ended up being a very small group, only four others showed up, but one (선영 Seonyeong) left before class really got underway. She’s moving to France in a couple months. So it was just high school student수미 Sumi, 병호 Byeongho and the guy who is Byeongho’s back half of the lion: 조연혁Jo Yeonhyeok. We started with practicing the lion dance, and I actually tried being the back half of the lion to Seonyeong, I learned a couple of the tricky points to being the back half. It looks easier than it is, not that it looks particularly easy, either. Jang spent a fair amount of time explaining the entire meaning of the lion scene, at one point he quizzed me and I didn’t immediately answer (I didn’t quite get what he meant) and he starts scolding me about “how can I study this long and not know this.” I think he doesn’t quite understand that the point of my research is not to analyze the scenes (or become a world class dancer) but rather to look at how, where, to whom, in what way etc. he is teaching. (As well as other people teaching other arts and the other major prong of my research is looking at how shows are presented to audiences, how effective that communication is). He repeatedly emphasized that no one can dance these dances correctly if they don’t know what they mean (this was directed at the two guys who are just starting to perform the lion dance when other’s aren’t available, they couldn’t answer any of his questions).

Yesterday they had performed on the US military base in mid-Seoul, and I asked some questions about how the announcer had introduced the show, etc. This led to a long conversation with Jang (he’s so opinionated!) and it started to stir up some analytic thinking that seems based around an idea of a conceit that the audience understands directly from the artists, what the artists intended, without need for mediation. Comments welcome.

Dept. store already decorated for X-mas: