Stylized Korean Theatrical Dance

Korea has a long history of dance traditions - royal court dances, fertility dances (very similar to the May Pole dances of Europe), shamanic dances, fan dances, and many more. A few select dances can even be traced back hundreds of years. The anciently documented dances are ritualized in theaters now throughout Korea; they are no longer for the pleasures of kings and queens or for harvest ceremonies but are now for entertainment of the common paying public masses. Theaters and art centers are eagerly performing interpretive dances too, and each performer has develops his or her own dance repertoire. Sangmyung Art Center held a performance with well-known Suh Yong Suk as the interpretive lead dancer. Unfortunately, I've somehow deleted 2 months of pictures (as well as the dance performance) and so I cannot give a picture example of each of the dances performed. The pictures here are from the complimentary brochure.

The performance began with the 사랑가, Love Dance, with dancers attired in the wedding colors to evoke emotions of romance - the male dancer wore blue while the female dancer wore red. These symbolic wedding colors for Korea have always somewhat perplexed me as blue is the color representing yin or the female while red is the color for yang or the male, and so I puzzle why there seems to be a cultural switch here.


The 한국의 인상 or Korean Expression performance, the 선비춤 or Literati Dance followed, and then the beautiful display of womanly femininity performing the 부채춤 or Fan Dance followed (pictured).


Most of the dances were interpretive rather than traditional according to their description logged in court texts. The lead performer gave his interpretation of 굴레, Destiny/Fate Dance, and then a large group of women performed the very stylized 검무, Sword Dance, which is perhaps one of the performances recorded in the Chosun Dynasty. Below is featured the lead dancer performing the 승무, Monk's Dance, with low lighting and fans blowing to plume out his 3 or 4 meter long sleeves.


The program closed with a phenomenal performance of more than 20 women simulataneously pounding on various small drums amongst other percussion instruments. It was a curtain-raising performance, but sorry, no pictures :(

KARMA - Animal Rescue Center

Korean Animal Rescue and Management Association (KARMA) is an animal rescue shelter for dogs (and a few cats). Located somewhere north of Uijeongbu, the shelter provides care for approximately 200-300 dogs in the winter and as many as 500 in the summer. That's a lot of dogs needing homes, needing care and food and walking and love until they find homes. It costs the shelter about ₩5,000,000 in the winter for 6-7 weeks of food for the 200-300 dogs. I don't know where such a lot of money comes from, but the salaries for the principle office workers is very slight while the majority of care if given by volunteers (12 at the moment). Above the offices are dorm rooms for volunteers and workers, so if anyone is interested in volunteering for an extended period of time (not just one afternoon), then I think KARMA would be quite pleased.


Unfortunately with costs being as high as they are, dogs cannot be kept indefinitely. KARMA typically keeps dogs 10 days, but if there's a chance of getting an adoption, they'll extend that time to 20 days, but then if the dog is healthy, cute and pure-bred they keep the dog even longer. In the long-term care room were several small popular dogs for Koreans and some of those dogs had the sweetest personality, but had been there for several months with no one adopting them. KARMA was still hopeful for these little guys because they were incredibly cute. I'm not a dog person but one little guy really captured my heart ... but dogs need so much care and are needy in comparison to cats, that I just wouldn't let my emotions make a decision I would later regret ... and to be abandoned or not loved when adopted a second time would be a painful blow to any pet :(

While my friend and I were there, we were so fortunate to see two dogs repatriated to their owner, big dogs too, a malamut and a larger terrier. The owner related someone opening the door of the house and the terrier shot out followed by his faithful happy huge friend, the malamut. The volunteer introducing us to the dogs explained that it was a rare day when someone came and actually found their missing pet.

The Play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?"

The Probationary Theatre Company put on another show at the Whitebox Theatre at Hyochang Park. The whole play consisted of four people, two couples. The first couple had been married for a long time, loved each other but were unable to express that love as they were two souls, perhaps soulmates, who had become deluded by the failure of meeting each other's expectations. Games, brutal games of verbal assault were played against each other with the second couple getting involved just be their being houseguests at 2am after a socialization party at the university where drinking was the standard. The drinking was heightened at the hosting house and was the catalyst for the inebriation and the "honest" baring of closet secrets to the guests in order for the first couple to attack one another.

Dark, sinister and convoluted the story seems until the end is reached where the husband's sick verbage is realized not to be so off at all but was "playing along" with the wife's delusions and borderline madness. The whole night of drinking and verbal and even physical abuse of the couple in front of their houseguests and at times towards their houseguests is tangled layers of a woven story using discordant threads; this all signifies the wavering between the fictions and the realities in their lives. A hard decipher.


I'm still slightly confused about the play being entitled "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?" There seemed to be some political or social allusion to Virginia Wolf beyond the refraine picked up in moments throughout the play that were intended to strick humor and poke jabs at people. But upon reading online more about the title, the refrain was sung to the tune and meter of "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf" and is a subtle questioning of who's afraid of allusions in their life. And in the final line, the deluded and stormy Martha states to her husband who is tender once she has been exposed, "I am, George. I am."

And thus ended the play, brilliant yet dark, soul-searching but filled with the fear of soul loss.

Daeboreum and Bureom

Following the lunar calendar the first full moon day (정월대보름 or 대보름) is classed as one of the five traditional Korean holidays. On this day people traditionally went out into the rice fields and "played" with fire in a ceremony called 쥐불놀이, literally 'field fire game' (source). This is rather uncommon anymore because Korea is no longer the agrigarian society it was 4-5 decades ago with many rice fields nearby and the desire to go out in the cold and play because there was nothing to do at home. People now prefer the warmth of their homes and more "exciting" entertainment like wii games and cartoon and movie networks or hanging out with friends in warmed coffee shops and heated theaters. But still, on this 15th day of the first lunar month the food culture is strong ... because it is a fact, Koreans love love love their food and eating!



대보름 Food Culture

대보름 now is heavily linked with the food culture in Korea. To start the eating culture for the day, chilled rice wine is served in the morning symbolizing the wish for good hearing and for charming only good news to be brought in one's hearing during the new year; this wine drinking and wishing tradition is referred to as 귀밝이술, or literally 'hearing cleanly liquor'.

On the big first full moon day, Koreans make mult-grained rice called 오곡밥 (5 grain rice) typically made with glutinous rice, black beans, red beans, millet and sorghum although other beans and grains can also be included.

나물 or vegetables are joyfully eaten on this day (although every day Koreans eat assortments of vegetables with their traditional Korean soups although the selection is very small). The vegetable assortments are eaten, and the vegetable pantry or in olden days the dried vegetables hanging from rafters and beams are cleaned out and/or more properly stored for the winter.

And of course 약식, the sticky rice cooked with chestnuts, jujubes, pine nuts and brown sugar are a tasty treat. Ah, I love this mixture and thankfully it's to be found at rice cake shops year round now! And for other 약식-lovers, here's a link with instructions on how to make the delicious dish.

And very importantly, nuts with hard shells are given on this day, particularly to children. At schools children have these nuts packed in their lunch boxes and they share, trade and give them to their classmates. The symbolism surrounding the hard-shelled nuts is to crack them with one's teeth, which is a wish for maintaining hard teeth as well as wishing for no boils or other skin problems in the new year. On this day the ancestors believed that if a person crunch the nuts as many times as his or her age, the person would not get any sores in the coming year and everything would go well. Most common nuts eaten on this day are the pine nuts, chestnuts, peanuts, and walnuts, and the tradition of cracking nuts for making wishes is called 부럼 as in the phrase 부럼을 깨물다, "biting nuts to ward off boils".[Just a note - do not confuse the pronunciation of 대보름, the first full moon day, with that of 부럼, cracking nuts.]

In these modern days, Koreans are a little more analytical about the nutrition of the nuts and not just fascinated with following their rich traditions. Now people discuss more the actual health qualities of nuts, and more and more nuts appearing in the market places because of this heigthened health awareness:

pine nuts ....... fights fatigue
chestnuts ....... promotes growth & a lot of urination
walnuts ......... prevents heart disease and diabetes, rich in Omega 3
gingko nuts ..... helps maintain appropriate urination
peanuts ......... abundant in protein

And now I hope you had a very pleasant 대보름 and cracked nuts as many times as years you are alive. Have a healthy year!

And here are some picts of the spread of seed and nut cakes available. Freshly made, still gooey and delicious! Puffed rice cakes on various flavors are also a big new years treat.