It’s rare for a piece of art to really surprise: in the “I did not see that coming” sense of the phrase. In the Bs “It’s not a cinema”, headed up by Chiehwan Sung, absolutely did: m.newswire.co.kr/newsRead.php?no=754701 The show was live on stage at the Yong Theatre at the National Museum in Yongsan, and it is hard to describe what it was: theater, film, performance art, music. Divided loosely into two sections, the first half would I guess best be described as live experiments in human-machine-human interaction. The initial single performer Doroomuk sits at his computer performing a number of interactions in time with a haunting music score, centred around the question of what does it mean to be present, to be a performance, and even what is the self. This description is the exact kind one might find on a really bad and over-thought college art project…but here it was not: the work was playful, interactive but deeply emotional in its roots. The most banal activities was lit large on the screen: with Doroomuk posting live to Facebook during the show, and having truly Kafka-esque and damn funny conversations with random strangers on a Chat-roulette website (see video link below), drawing them into the performance. What was interesting about the first half, as well as the second, was that there was no way to tune out: With lots of movies and even much art one can drift into a glazed over passive state, but this was so self aware it called attention to that very fact, magnifying the simple actions to the point where there was no way to not be in the now. That feeling that: This is now. And nowhere else. There was nowhere to hide. Halfway through the show explodes into its second “act” from 1 then 2 performers to an ensemble cast and crew of 20+, performing a silent (though accompanied by live music/singing) tableau of scenes of a relationship as it unfolds and falls apart. All the scene pieces were stage at once, so there was this great sense of Chekov’s law being in play: “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If its not going to be fired, it shouldnt be hanging there.” —Anton Chekhov We wondered with each element how it would be incorporated, how what was foreshadowed, what was physically there, would enter the unfolding story. The sense of the unexpected, but also of the inevitably of choices made as the work unfolds, built perfectly as the piece moved on. Two scenes are below in the comments (short snippets). After the close of this human drama they flip everything entirely. The same story, nearly unfolds, but all the parts have changed: the tough gangster from round one melts on stage into a kind and gentle man, falling in love on an elevator. The same scenes play out, but the smallest of changes, of motivations, change the shapes of lives: how who we are, who we choose to define ourselves as may be more malleable than it appears initially, and that when we take up a new self, an entirely different future becomes possible. Many thanks to 여소연 and Jiwon for taking me and translating a bit when the typing in Korean in act 1 got too fast for my slowly learning language brain. For future events of the same follow: https://facebook/INTHEB For lots of art in Seoul in general by far my favourite link is still: artinasia/event.php?catID=6&filSM=1 Huge congrats also to Moriah on her 10th speech! Was great to meet up with the Roastmasters group after the show.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 07:13:50 +0000
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