Performance Review of "baram"
Text: Shimada Eri

In a space that has been forgotten by people and continues to live on in the memory of someone, this performance silently, yet with a fever-heat, held that moment. 

The stage was Kyushu University's Hakozaki Campus.  The Korea- Japan Collaboration Program "baram" opened its Dance/Theatre/Film piece to the public on an evening in which the cherry blossoms approached full bloom earlier than in usual years.  

Kyushu University's Museum (previously the intelligent machine lab-factory), nicknamed the machinery room, first took in the audience, which was full for both of the performance's two days.  Purchased at the time of Kyushu University's establishment, it is a storehouse for old machinery used by students for experiments and research until the engineering department’s transfer to the Ito campus from 2005.  Film arising in the dim storehouse and letters projected on the floor stated the beginning of the program.

At this time the dancers' confessions about themselves, moments in which they feel isolation and empathy, memories from dreams they've had, and the places they were raised in their childhood were projected.  The dance was developed as if to overlap with that film, and since it aroused the audience's interest in the dancers, this served as the prologue to the performance. 
Next, the audience moved inside the campus and was taken to the Memorial Auditorium. It was built as a memorial to 50th anniversary of Kyushu University which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2011. Half a century from that occasion, this auditorium is utilized for Kyushu University's ceremonies and events.  There is a cafeteria on the first floor, a place where students gather.  In that auditorium, Miwa Tetsuzo's one-man show, the drama "Do you like wine?" was performed.

In this space we wander about the history relating to wine and the mentality of one sommelier in reality (the space we exist in).  It certainly was "wandering," as we steadily fell into a mysterious intoxication while losing our bearings in that situation's transformations.  Especially in the end scene, in which he showed his fear and anger towards the "white bellies" that always covered above the sommelier's head, seemed like it told the history of when a phantom fighter aircraft of U.S. Air Force crashed into the school grounds in 1968, and how airplanes always come flying over Kyushu University's Hakozaki campus even after Fukuoka airport became a civilian airport from 1972.  (Currently, there are approximately 400 takeoffs and landings, with the international and domestic flights combined.  The number of annual takeoffs and landings is 3rd in the country, after Haneda and Narita.)

Then finally, the dance "baram" by 7 dancers living in Fukuoka and South Korea was performed as the program's compilation.

It was composed as a dance with all 7 people, duets in which two people faced each other, and then again with everybody, in the auditorium hall in which 7 portraits painted by Tanaka Chisato were arranged.  Amidst these dances I especially felt a tenderness and pleasantness in Duo Kong Youngsun and Cho Hyeoungjun's dance movements, which had a flowing lightness and flexibility.  Then, the images of empathy and isolation in a group came across in the middle of expressing many physical movements and dance patterns.  There, isolation and empathy shifted in an instant, and the intricate entanglement of the two emotions was felt, like they are empathizing with each other and they are isolated from each other, also.  Furthermore, Park Jerok's music stimulated our emotions.
What comprehensive director Jung Youngdoo first thought at the start of this project was the question "After removing people's prejudices and preconceived notions, can't people encounter each other just as human being to human being without deciding about the other person from their background, such as that person's nationality or hometown?"  However, I think that perhaps as the project progressed for roughly one year, it changed into the way of thinking that it is important to know the history of the other person in order to understand the other person.  That way of thinking was not just towards people but also including the place that became the stage, and I understand this as the reason for which Jung Youngdoo personally carried out many interviews in Fukuoka and added diverse project members from various backgrounds such as text, dance, theatre, visual arts, and film.

I participated as a project member a little bit late, but I think that the dancers' words left the most lasting impression on me.  Suenaga Claire, who has been living in Fukuoka for 19 years, learned the Japanese word for "isolation" for the first time through this project, and she said that the reason for this is that since it is a negative word, there was no one around her who uses it.  At that moment, when she asked me what the english word is for what an isolated situation feels like, I answered "lonely," but now that I think about it, I feel like that is not enough.  Amongst the inquiries to dancers about isolation, when I think over again the strong words of Lee Sunjin's "in this world, one decides while thinking by herself, she has to decide.  I think that moment is isolation," or Ogata Yuka's "when the people one really loves, his parents or close friends, won't give him a push to do what he wants to do, he feels isolation," I thought that isolation is a word that makes me feel a strong determination, not necessarily negative, of a person being "alone" when he or she tries to accomplish something.  Through this project, I feel like I learned the power words possess and the act of meeting people from Jung Youngdoo.

Project Review

Text: Tsutui Aya

Summer, 2012.
This project started as the second round of JCDN's International Dance in Residence Exchange Project.  The artist who came down to Fukuoka was Jung Youngdoo, who is active in Korea as a director and choreographer.  It seems that at the beginning he was being conscious of "the unconscious of human beings" as seen through the historical relationship between South Korea and Japan.  That is an extremely large theme due to its philosophical nature, including ideology, language, and nationality.  As expected, it was to the extent that I felt unease about drawing near to the worldview expressing this director's vague impression.
He started from interviewing people from various standpoints and occupations, in various places such as the city ward office, university, artists, fishermen, and Zainichi Koreans (resident ethnic Koreans in Japan)- whatever came to mind.  As if he were reeling in some invisible, fine thread.  However, there was an encounter that gave a large guideline to his creation.  It is Kyushu University, which is the venue for today's performance.  Japan's history is engraved in old buildings.  This is not only wonderful history.  Kyushu University stands quietly, as if it were taking in everything, events that cause resentment and the sad past, also.  At that time they were talking about how it looks like the land's thoughts or feelings dwell in the location.  This project truly started after he decided to make this place the venue.
Winter, 2012.

When visiting Fukuoka in the summer, a workshop was held mainly for foreigners residing in Fukuoka.  Pondering over the question "why can't people get to know each other as fellow human beings, in the true sense, without being conscious of nationality," Jung Youngdoo wanted to bring together as many foreigners as possible to the workshop.  At this point he got another theme, which was that he wanted to make the piece with dancers from many different nationalities.

Dancers from Japan and England were selected at the audition for performers, he called upon a few dancers from South Korea, and 7 dancers possessing individuality and ability were decided.  Furthermore, since he wanted to also try to make a theatrical piece, he underwent creation of a one-man show simultaneously.  The decided cast members showed videos of their own dance styles after the audition, and he kept in contact with each of them while exchanging e-mails.  At this point as well, the theme of the piece was still vague.  However, "human beings' unconsciousness" was consistent from the start.  Mother country and foreign country.  No matter what, this borderline of the unconscious is on his mind, but a clear answer will not come out.  While holding meeting, the staff was lost in thought, carefully looking for what is being illuminated upon and made visible in his head. 

" Language" were a big wall.  Most of the Japanese staff cannot speak Korean.  The interviews also cannot go ahead without interpretation.  From looking at the circumstances of the interviews, I wondered if what one really wants to say would be communicated to the other through interpretation.  Won't there be differences in translation?  Can one hear what one really wants to hear?  However, that slight gap was filled by talking while looking at the facial expression of the other person.  It seemed like looking at the other person in the eye when speaking to him or her communicates "something" to the each other, a "something" that cannot be relayed through words.  No, not seemed, something definitely was communicated.  Rather than using a multitude of words freely and trying to talk about something, there is a simpler method.  I felt that sort of thing from his interviews.  On top of that, I also felt that this was perhaps Yongdoo’s message to us. However, in order to present it as a piece, that is not enough.  Facing a meager light far off in the distance, everyone involved in the project was still groping in the dark.

Spring, 2013.

At last, he stayed in Fukuoka full scale, and the creation started.  The script for the one-man show was finished one month before the performance.  From here he had to complete the theatrical piece and the dance piece.  The practical creation work of the artistic staff, space designers, and filmmakers had to proceed at the same time, but there were many undecided matters.  There was also a limit to the budget.  Several ideas were put out in order to get closer to Jung Youngdoo's image, if even just a little.  What pulled along the dance was the picture that Tanaka Chisato drew.  Moreover, Tsuda Mitsuo handled the space design as an installation.  As a thin trunk becomes rapidly bigger, the project's trunk was cultivated into a stable thing and became thicker as the participants increased one by one. Then, the staff and cast concentrated all of their energy in order to carry out only two performances.

The performance was produced like an excursion around the buildings of the campus, in the different images of the dance, theatre, and installations in each location.  I felt that in theatrical pieces such as dance and theatre the existence of the venue (in what kind of place will one show the piece) always has a big influence on the observer, but precisely in the piece that was created in this project, everything, the performers and the space, united and left "something" in the hearts of the audience.

Jung Youngdoo says that he expressed at least a little of what he was conscious of at the beginning, such as language, ideology, and nationality, through the piece.  However, I wonder if the project in its entirety, especially, is not in the form of the piece that he wanted to make.  If I tried to explain it, I would say that he made two pieces: a piece called "baram" to show to the audience, and this project called "baram."

A research and an audition report during the Tsutui Aya review is here. ＞