Friday, September 14, 2007
By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER
A woman with a shaved head and Buddhist monk's robes twirls in the middle of the stage to the sound of an insistent singsong chant. She seems to be moving slowly, repeating ritual circles, turning cymbals in her hands with unhurried assurance; and yet, she dances in time. The constant flow of her long sleeves and robes, though full of motion, paradoxically creates a feeling of rest and stillness between the crashes of the two brass discs.[Photo above: from a performance of "Across the DMZ," courtesy of Sudden Enlightenment]
Along with the two dancers behind her, robed in white, Monk Jihyun rehearses the Buddhist Ceremony for the Dead. But the honoree is no one -- and everyone at the same time. They are performing in a piece called "49 Days After Death" for "The Road," the Sudden Enlightenment Theatre's 10th anniversary show at Symphony Space.
The dance company has created a niche for itself in dramatic presentations of Korean culture using traditional and modern Western techniques. Director Eun-Hee Kim and choreographer Hey Jeong Yoon joined forces in 1997 after meeting as neighbors in Astoria, Queens.
"I have a theater background in straight plays," said Kim. "But to say something with words has its limits, I think. It gives definitions, but it reduces imagination. Dance is a little bit more abstract than theater pieces, but it gives a lot of imagination."
The opening of "49 Days," for example, features Monk Jihyun's drumming, followed by the symbolic passage of a soul, played by Yoon, through the limbo following death. As she wades slowly through swaths of waist-high white cloth, she physicalizes the soul's reluctance to move on to its next life.
In a later ensemble segment, dancers use framed mirrors to confront each other, themselves and the audience with the reflections. "The mirror is the symbol of karma," said Kim. "Look at yourself, it says. Look at your karma, look at the bad energy of the three poisons of the mind: greed, ignorance and anger."
Other excerpted pieces in this retrospective performance tackle touchstones in Korean and Korean-American history.
"Dreams of a Picture Bride" dramatizes the story of the first female Korean immigrants to America, who arrived as mail-order brides for Korean men working in the sugar cane fields of Hawaii.
The plot revolves around a naive young wife, played by Ashley Drowne, whose older husband had used an outdated picture to mislead her about his age. She rejects his advances as much as she can but cannot return to her native Korea. The husband, played with alternating sinister authority and real pathos by Manuel Palazzo, is genuinely distressed by the situation and tries his best to reconcile with his wife while undertaking the punishing work of the cane fields.
In another segment in the piece, the dancers, led by Michelle Lee, break into a traditional Korean song during a moving scene evocative of plantation slave labor. The song, "Arirang," is sung in times of hardship, explained Yoon.
In "Beyond the DMZ," Kim and Yoon tell the emotional story behind the separation of North and South Korea. Dancers Blake Faulds and Cornelius Brown square off, sparring once with flags and another time across a symbolic negotiation table. In between, dancers walk across the stage using repetitive motions -- indicative of time passing, said Yoon -- and roll in fits of agony, holding black rubber balls that represent bombs.
The final segment brings out the emotional core of the piece with an ensemble number that simulates a 1983 gathering in South Korea, where people from all over the country tried to find lost loved ones after decades of separation. Each dancer holds a placard with a photograph and a name, and all roam the stage in alternating throes of hope and disappointment.
The most powerful image may be the sight of the whole company standing, silent and unmoving but bursting with energy, holding the missing persons signs high above their heads. Actions, they seem to say, speak louder than any politician's words.
E-mail: shih@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
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