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

Guess Whom This Memorial Service Is For

Take a good look at the offerings particularly in the foreground and guess whom these people are honouring.

Click here for the answer. I wonder if Korea's the only place in the world where such a scene can be found.

source:
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_entertainment/477167.html

Spring Cleaning For Trees?

Can't decide which is more impressive - the sight of an 872-year-old juniper  near Seocho Station in the southern part of Seoul OR the sight of an employee of the municipal council giving it some serious TLC?

Wish people in my corner of the cosmos had half the regard these people here have for trees. We prefer to chop down branches so that they don't smash our windowscreens during a thunderstorm. We'd even sooner chop down all the trees to convert the land into prime real estate or plantations or golf courses. Instead of admiring a tree-lined avenue, we'd opt for the space to be cleared for extra parking space.

 

What puzzles me is the exact treatment the trees are getting here - pardon my ignorance but why on earth would they need washing?

Korea Times photo by Won You-hon

sources:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/03/115_83791.html
http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com/slideshow-photo/these-women-were-cleaning-the-trees-by-travelpod-member-bee7bea-kyongju-south-korea.html?sid=12304232&fid=tp-15
http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/news/news_photo_detail.htm?No=16237&current_page=

Inspiration For New K-Drama

While surfing through the JoongAng Daily on-line, it occurred to me that some news stories had the potential to be new plot lines for Korean TV. It’s been some time since I’ve actually followed a new Korean TV drama so excuse me if the following suggestions aren’t trendy, clichéd or plain dull.

First off, here’s an idea for wholesome entertainment, suitable for the whole family – an elementary school somewhere out in the boondocks of Korea is under threat of closure with its shrinking numbers until a young teacher comes along with fresh ideas to turn things around. Start with some conflicts with over-aged students, conservative principal or staff and anxious parents.

Then mix these with some heated debates about whether encouraging creativity undermines discipline. Finally spice it up with pastoral scenes of the children harvesting their own sweet potatoes in their own school vegetable garden and you may have a recipe for a heart-warming though awfully clichéd story that may be a throwback to Sidney Poitier’s To Sir With Love.

Too treacly for your tastebuds? How about this other school-based story with a nod towards Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy For Lady Vengeance? A ex-army retiree has the local eyebrows raised when she volunteers to be a school sheriff. Comic scenes of how she bungles during her training sessions turn into sinister moments as she takes advantage of her placid demeanour and position to do away with the fourth-grade teachers one by one.

Plot No. 3 – An ex- government worker receives a windfall and pursues his dream of setting up a bar. Things go well for him until he comes to the defence of a young employee who’s being bullied by his colleagues to take part in drinking rounds of soju. The underbelly of corporate culture comes under scrutiny here through the eyes of the bartender cum pub owner – to drink or not to drink, is that simply the question?

Plot No 4 – A study of a family business in a barbershop - across three generations. The colourful lives of their patrons like the corrupt politician and head of a chaebol will form the substance of each episode. Woven into this story would be the generational clash between the family patriarch who wants to “keep what is sacred” and his grand-son who wants to move to Gangnam.

Finally, a grim story based on the memoirs of a retired prison guard whose guilty conscience drives him to seek atonement for taking part in the execution of innocent political prisoners. Set against the turbulent politics of the 1950s, we get a chance to see what Seoul was like in the post-war years.

So what do you think? !%$i$(&##%@*^%#@$%

OK , OK - I'm sticking to my day job.


sources:
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2929813

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2932715
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2931620
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2932556
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2932085

Signs of Summer's End - Cheoseo

Cheoseo , or 처서 (處暑) which means " the limit of heat", is one of the 24 seasonal divisions in the lunar calendar. It marks the beginning of the end of summer and while it may not mean much to city-slickers, you may spot signs of the turn of the seasons in the Korean countryside.

For instance, this would be the time when farmers start to dry their red peppers out in the sun.

Apparently, this is the best time to savour peaches in Korea.

Cosmos blooms such as these ones near Jungryangcheon, in Sageun-dong, in Seoul are another sign that autumn is on its way.

Rice harvesting takes place around this time as well. Farmers like the people here from Deokpo Village near Busan, keep their fingers crossed ( or whatever is the Korean equivalent of that) for dry days leading up to Cheoseo as they need the sun for the rice to ripen quickly.

Also, don't be surprised to see more people than usual cooling off under the Cheonjeyon Falls in Jeju-do  around the 23rd of August. One legend has it that you can recover from any illness if you stand under the falls  which means "the pond of God" on Cheoseo Day.

According to one Korean proverb, "mosquito mouths are shut when Cheoseo comes". Unfortunately, with global warming a sad and more apparent reality, autumn mosquitoes are likely to be a thing of the present and future.

Here's a solemn poem by Heo Hyung Man and translated by Rodney E. Tyson and Hong Eun-Taek. While it's inspired by the shift from summer heat to autumn cool, the sobering sense of our days being numbered is all too apparent in this lyric.

"Cheoseo"

A winged insect flies low low

In a brief instant it's cloudy

A pine tree halfway up the mountain

Is imprisoned in a black cloud

Fluttering, the sound of

The birds of the earth flying up all at once

Began to accompany the strong wind

More than the days I've lived

The days I'll live have become much shorter

All of heaven's living things

Are hurrying back to the earth

from The Quarterly Review: Poetry & Criticism, 3(1), 225-226. Spring 2000.

souces:
http://ausharjah.tripod.com/cv/poem6.html
http://www.sdals.com/Translation-Club/20070825-TC-SS-Notes.pdf
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/08/24/2010082400614.html
http://www.korea.net/news.do?mode=detail&guid=49296
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_term
http://nlpweb.kaist.ac.kr/gwc/excursion.html
http://rki.kbs.co.kr/english/culturenlife/culturenlife_seoultoday_detail.htm?No=1012
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/04/115_8891.html
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2000082262680&path_dir=20000822
http://www.ivynews.kr/news/_news_main.html?code=photo§ion=view&page=7&number=196
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=1918966
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2010/05/143_8876.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peach
Korea's Pastimes and Customs: A Social History by Yi I-Hwa