Cultural Art Performance by Jang-seung Eouri Art Troupe, Part 2

There were two main reasons why I wanted to attend this concert  presented by the Jang-Seung Eouri Art Troupe. First, I was hoping to hear again the Dharma drums which I had witnessed at various temples in Korea before. If you've read my earlier posting, you already know how satisfied I was on that score.

The second reason was the Salpuri dance. Korea is well-known for its exuberant and energetic dances by troupes of graceful ladies in jewel-hued hanboks. Salpuri, however, is a solo act by a single female in plain white hanbok and it's slow and restrained. But when I first saw it performed at the Chongdong Theatre, I was riveted. It was such a haunting and moving experience that  I now look forward to any chance of seeing it 'live'. It's been claimed that the dance has shamanistic roots although others maintain that the name of the dance alone is its only link to shamanistic rites as the literal meaning of "salpuri" is to wash away evil spirits.

Another person sees the dance as embodying the essence of Han, meaning  "sorrow, bitterness or unsatisfied desire", a characteristic of Korean art and culture. Click here for this writer's pretty vivid description of the dance. Better still, watch the videoclip below.




So was I satisfied with Ms Jung Kyeong's performance? I'm no dance critic and the concert organisers didn't have the benefit of all the top-notch facilities of the Chongdong Theatre so let's just say she did a fairly decent job but it wasn't as mesmerising as the first time I saw it on a cold autumn evening in Seoul. What I'd really like to do is to go to some remote Buddhist temple in Korea on a full moon night and watch this danced in the open courtyard in the partial darkness.  I want the shivers to run down my back not simply from the low temperatures of the fall season but to recreate a scene I saw in that enigmatic Buddhist movie entitled "Why Has Bodhidharma Left For The East?" by Bae Yong -kyun.

Here are some additional notes on salpuri from a source indicated below:

"Usually a mudang(shaman) presided over the process. Shamanism is a long-held tradition which emerged around the Three Kingdoms era. Salp'uri was the climax of shaman rituals. Its representative by-product is the unique salp'uri rhythmic cycle that has been adapted in other performing arts. Salp'uri is prevalent in the Honam region, the southwestern part of Korea, in the form of ssitkimgut, the soul cleansing shaman rite. This is regarded as the archetype of the present Salp'urich'um which uses a white silk scarf as a key prop. The salp'urich'um dance has been polished over the centuries to add artistic value, and so it is hard today to trace it back to a mere exorcism rite. It was performed in shaman rites accompanied by the rhythms of shinawi (featuring an extensively improvised ensemble with wind and percussion instruments) to attract the interest of spectators. As it was refined into an artistic artform, salp'uri's name changed to ipch'um, chukhungch'um, or sugonch'um.

Although it derived from shaman rites, salp'uri does not carry out any religious function. The dancer, attuning herself to the sorrowful shinawi music, portrays sadness and anxiety in her every step. During this process, the dancer's movement reveals striking energy and movement as she performs in a trance- like state. The salp'uri's rhythmic normal font cycle starts out with slow-paced shinawi rhythms and gradually builds up speed which conveys the dancer's excitement."

Incidentally, I came across this brief abstract entitled "Dynamics of brain electric field during recall of Salpuri dance performance" by Park JR, Yagyu T, Saito N, Kinoshita T, Hirai T.  See below. Have to check with a neurologist what the jargon means but it does sound as intriguing as the dance itself.

Abstract
The brain wave activity of a professional Salpuri dancer was observed while the subject recalled her performance of the Salpuri dance when sitting in a chair with closed eyes. As she recalled the feeling of the ecstatic trance state induced by the dance, an increase in alpha brain activity was observed together with marked frontal midline theta activity. Compared to a resting state, the dynamics of the electrical activity in the brain showed an increase in the global field power integral and a decrease in generalized frequency and spatial complexity.

Click here for the link to Chongdong Theatre. You may or may not see a salpuri performance there now but a good show is usually to be expected there.

LondonKoreanLinks has an interesting article on dance. I learn from its posting that male dancers may also perform the salpuri! Hmm... pardon my bias, but I doubt the effect would be as haunting.



sources:
http://www.asianinfo.org/asianinfo/korea/perform/salpuri.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12509202
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubRo6V4aUc8
http://www.koreafilm.org/feature/100_83.asp

Cultural Performance By Jang-Seung Eouri Art Troupe - Part 1

While Mother Nature was throwing a a pretty intimidating temper tantrum last Sunday afternoon, the audience who attended a cultural performance presented by the Jang-Seung Eouri Art Troupe were treated to a quite an interesting time. This fund-raiser,  organised by BGF ( Buddhist Gem Fellowship)
in collaboration with Sam Poh Thong and held at the MAS Academy auditorium in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia was quite well-attended though the attendees were presumably members of various Buddhist groups in the country. It would've been even more heart-warming if  the audience had been more diverse but I guess the young Hallyu fans were saving their money for another SuJu or 2 AM (  or is it 2 PM ?) concert.

The event started off  a bit too sedately though not surprisingly but it soon warmed up and got the audience tapping their feet, clapping their hands and even asking for an encore from the musicians.  The MCs, a  Malaysian and a Korean, were nowhere to be seen at the beginning which was a little surprising but they did offer interesting snippets of information about the backdrop for the first one-third of the concert.  What did raise my eyebrows was the  Taenghwa  (탱화, San.: Thangka i.e. a painting of Buddha images or stories from the Sutras on silk or hemp cloth.) which formed the backdrop for the first section of the concert. This one though, which is a replica of an original masterpiece featured the Goddess of Mercy.


 Part 1 Making An Offering To Buddha

• Bopgo - Dharma  Drum  Dance performed by the Venerable Seong Ju

 Memo to Self - Remember NOT to have ANY expectations! This particular Bopgo was a far cry from the intense drumming I had heard on previous visits to the temples in Korea. Philistine that I am, I couldn't help wishing the Ven. Seong Ju had kept to convention instead of giving us her artistic interpretation of the daily ritual intended to "awaken all sentient beings and open their minds to participate in the Dharma or Buddhist Law so that they may be delivered from suffering".

So, mian-hamnida to Ven. Seong Ju but I was really disappointed with the slow -moving opening item which barely contained much contact with the drum. The latter wasn't as huge as anticipated either, so that was another disappointment. I felt let-down particularly because I was hoping my companion could hear what I had heard and fallen in love with before. Looks like I'll have to drag her to a temple to Korea myself one of these days just so she can hear for herself what I've been raving about.

Click here then for some idea of what I'm missing.

• Bara JakBeop - Bara ( Cymbals) Dance

No idea how close this dance item is to the original choreography but according to one website, "monks perform this dance...to purify the place by defeating evils". The dance aims to make people have "righteous minds" so I suppose one would really need to be educated in an appreciation of Buddhist performance arts to really appreciate what's going on.There are supposed to be 84 rhythms but I forgot to listen out for these. Either the music didn't sound that varied in its rhythmic patterns to my uneducated ears or maybe I was nodding off because I didn't have enough sleep the night before.

Two ladies presented this item and we could applaud their ability to maintain their balance despite all the turning round and round which they had to do. Still, one couldn't help wishing they had been moving in unison a little more closely and this is where I suppose I had underestimated the efforts and endless practises to achieve the clockwork precision of Girls' Generation dances. ( Horrors - am I drawing parallels between the sacred and the profane??? ) Plus I would've liked the ajummas to bang their cymbals with more conviction. The rather lady-like sounds they produced would NOT have been very effective in scaring any demon away. Still, I'm glad for the chance to see this dance because it wouldn't be something one comes across easily, unless one happened to be at some temple during a Buddhist celebration, I figure.

Here are some notes on two  dances  from another source:

"The ‘ Barachum’ (바라춤, Cymbals Dance) is a temple dance which, through clasping our fists and unclasping them, represents our vow to live in harmony, and to accept the teachings of the Buddha and to promulgate them. (Its origin goes back to the time of the ‘Bara’.)

The purpose of the ‘Nabichum’ (나비춤, Butterfly Dance) is to gather together all gods in the whole. It also calls all sentient beings that have not come back to life in order that they may repent of all sins and bad karma, and create good karma. Therefore, the moves and steps of the Barachum (바라춤, Cymbals Dance) and Nabichum (나비춤, Butterfly Dance) are solemn and strict, and are done with clear and unattached mind. Therefore, these movements symbolize the true meaning of ‘Seon’ (J : Zen). For example, the basic movements of the Dances are to take steps tracing the Chinese character (‘丁’, K: Jeong, 정). The main movements are; to turn around in circles signifying integrity and harmony, to clasp and unclasp the hands signifying love and compassion, and to fold and unfold the body symbolizing taking refuge."

To be continued....

sources:
http://www.bovis.tv/index.php?id=14,36,0,0,1,0
http://eng.koreatemple.net/culture/default.asp?cat_id=10&page=3