LONDON, UK —
All
eyes were turned to London on July 27, for the opening ceremony of the
London 2012 Olympics. With 16,000 athletes from 204 countries and over
11 million visitors, the audience watched in awe as they walked through
the history and culture of the United Kingdom in a three-hour showcase.
ALL EYES ON KOREA
Taking advantage of being in the host
city of the Olympics, the Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK) has set out
to grab the attention of Londoners and Olympic travelers by launching a
100-day summer festival entitled All Eyes on Korea. From June 1 to
September 9, 2012, the cultural campaign will present an extensive
series of cultural and entertainment programs throughout London to
showcase modern and traditional Korean culture. To date, Korean culture
has mostly garnered international recognition for its pop music (K-pop) and television dramas (K-drama). To introduce and spread interest in diverse aspects of Korean culture and arts, the Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS)
and KCCUK have organized programs under the categories of K-Arts,
K-Music, K-Classics, K-Literature, K-Film, K-Fashion, K-Lecture, K-Food,
and K-Culture.
K-ARTS
On June 1, Korean installation artist Choi Jeong-hwa
kicked off the All Eyes on Korea festival with the exhibition Time
after Time. With the help of local supporters and volunteers, Choi
covered 16 concrete columns of the Hayward Gallery balcony with over
5,000 green plastic baskets instilling life and fun in the gray
building. Time after Time will run until September 9, along with Life
Life, Choi’s other exhibition that places 20,000 colored balloons in the
trees around the Hungerford Bridge.
Another Korean artist, Kim Beom, is
holding an exhibition entitled The School of Inversion at the same
gallery. Kim uses a variety of media including drawings, video, and
sculptural installations to turn the conventional norms of a classroom
upside down, making visitors reflect on their perceptions of a
classroom. The display will continue until September 2 as part of the
Southbank Centre’s Festival of the World.
Korean artist Lee Bul also gave a lecture at the Hayward Gallery by participating as a teacher at Southbank Center’s
Wide Open School, which is an unusual experiment in learning. From June
11 to July 22, the gallery became a temporary summer school in which
100 artists from 40 different countries facilitated workshops,
collaborative projects, lectures, and performances about subjects they
were passionate about. On June 15, Lee gave a 90-minute lecture about
her work processes and major projects displayed at her recent exhibition
at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. The lecture was very well received by
art lovers and professionals alike. The KCCUK is also running its own
exhibition, Korean Funerary Figures: Companions for the Journey to the
Other World. The exhibition showcases a traditional funeral bier along
with wooden figures of a variety of people, including clowns, noblemen,
and mythological creatures, each of which serve as decorations for a
funeral bier. At the exhibition, visitors will be able to explore the
unique aspects of Korean folklore. The exhibition will continue until
September 9.
K-MUSIC
The traditional music group Be-Being
presented a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the Southbank Center
on July 23. Entitled Yi-myun-gong-jak , Be-Being’s mask music project
was inspired by the long history of Korean masks and their cultural
aspects. The concert consisted of traditional Korean music of both
original compositions and reinterpretations of various traditional
Korean mask plays. The title of the concert, Yi-myun-gong-jak, is a
Korean expression that originally refers to an activity or action behind
the scenes or wire-pulling in the background, which in this concert
alludes to the symbolism of masks and the masquerades they offer in the
context of traditional Korean mask plays.
There was also a pansori concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on July 30. Pansori is a genre of traditional Korean music (gugak)
that features a vocalist who sings and chants a story accompanied by a
percussionist and is officially recognized by UNESCO as an important
piece of world culture. A group of performers, Pansori Project ZA,
staged Pansori Brecht Sacheon-Ga, a work of modern pansori imbued with romantic love and satire. Its narrative style incorporates modern dramatic elements.
On July 28, the K-Music festival
featured another work of traditional Korean music with a contemporary
twist through the concert Walkabout rendered by fusion gugak group
GongMyoung at the Purcell Room of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The quartet
played 30 types of instruments in this performance. Creating their own
instruments specific to each desired sound, the group blends melody and
rhythms with the power of Korean drums and the delicacy of their
percussion.
K-CLASSICS
Two of the world’s most celebrated
Korean performers of Western classical music are Avery Fisher Prize
laureate violinist Sarah Chang and Grammy Award-winning soprano Jo Sumi.
These two musicians collaborated with the Helsinki Philharmonia Orchestra
and conductor Leif Segerstam at the Royal Festival Hall on July 31. At
the concert Shining K-Classics, Chang performed the third movement of
Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and an arrangement of a suite from
Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, while Jo sang the song “Ah! vous
dirai-je, Maman” from Adolphe Adam’s Le Toreador and the song
“Villanelle” by Eva Dell’Acqua. The audience also had the luxury of
listening to Jo sing Ahn Jun-joon’s arrangement of the traditional
Korean folk song “Arirang.”
On
12th July, passionate volunteers gathered at the Korean Cultural Centre
UK to promote our 100 Days Festival. They sang and danced the most
recent K-pop songs and shouted Dae-han-min-guk along the streets of
central London (photo courtesy of KCCUK).
K-LITERATURE
From June 26 to July 1, Kim Hyesoon shared Korean literature
with the public at the United Kingdom’s largest ever poetry festival
Poetry Parnassus. With poets from each competing Olympic nation
participating, Kim recited poems including “All the Garbage of the
World, Unite!” and “Seoul, Korea” in Korean followed by English
translation. Kim is said to be one of the most important contemporary
poets of Korea and was one of the first women to be published in a
literary journal in Korea.
K-FILM
The festival also promotes Korean films
by screening movies at the KCCUK. and inviting film directors to attend
the screenings and have a Q&A session. The Korean filmmakers
featured first included Lee Jun-Ik of Battlefield Heroes and Lee
Hyun-seung of Hindsight. Director Lee Yoon-ki of Come Rain, Come Shine
and Jeon Kyu-hwang of Varanasi will visit London on August 30 and
September 27 respectively to attend each movie’s screening and answer
audience questions. On August 2, the KCCUK will screen Crossroads of
Youth, South Korea’s oldest surviving black-and-white silent movie,
which will be accompanied by a narrator and live orchestra. The audience
will be able to experience the film just as Korean audiences did when
it was premiered in 1934.
K-FASHION
On July 30, the gala reception Korean
Shining Bright showcased the latest collections of Korean fashion
designer Lie Sang Bong on the special runway of the Victoria and Albert
Museum. The 300 invitees were mesmerized by the colorful prints and
intricate construction designs, which were inspired by a classic Korean
architectural element called dancheong (the traditional multicolored
paint of Korean royal palaces). Korean culture supporters who attended a
12-week K-pop academy course at the KCCUK were dressed in T-shirts
designed by Lie Sang Bong while visiting major tourist attractions in
London to promote the All Eyes on Korea events.
K-LECTURES
The KCCUK also hosted a series of
lectures on topics ranging from Korean cuisine to Korean literature to
Korean music. On July 18, Ralph Rugoff, the director of the Hayward
Gallery, shared his experiences in curating contemporary art and Korean
artists. On July 18, an introduction to easy Korean dishes such as rice
cakes and drinks was demonstrated by Master Chef Tony Yoo. On July 20,
Professors Keith Howard from SOAS, the University of London, and
Professor Nathan Hasselink from the University of British Columbia lectured on the traditions, innovation, and identity of Korean music.
K-FOOD and K-CULTURE
The All Eyes on Korea festival will
draw to a close with an outdoor event at the 2012 Mayor’s Thames
Festival on September 8-9. The event will stage comedy shows and display
pieces of contemporary arts and crafts, a wide selection of food
tasting stands, and live artist workshops in front of the Tate Modern,
an art gallery in London. It will also showcase a traditional Korean
wedding ceremony.
To browse the list of All Eyes on
Korea events and to find out which ones to get involved in, please visit
the official website of the KCCUK.
Source: Korea magazine
