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Performance Info

KIM Kyung Hee (Performance director. Head of the Creative Group NONI )

: A playful ‘gut’ ritual that commemorates things that remember

How did you get your start in theatre?

I majored in set design at university. So I approached theatre from the vantage point of someone who ‘observes’ and ‘makes’ from the very beginning. My very first piece was a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We couldn’t rent out a theatre so we made it into a puppet show. I was interested in the European art of ‘marionette’ and that naturally led to a profound interest in the traditional Korean puppet, ‘kkok-du.’ The traditional puppet makes for amazing content but in certain aspects felt limited. I thought that if I reinterpreted the traditional puppet I could suggest a new way for using that medium.

How did the Creative Group NONI come about?

In the winter of 2005, Kkok-Du first came out. At the time the team consisted of mostly students: one actor, one traditional dancer and about ten stage artists. Our focus was on producing, acting and directing all on our own and working together while trying new things that were out of our comfort zones. The stage art in particular strived to expand its horizons by looking beyond the system and being more proactive and autonomous in the process.

Many of your work were inspired by traditional Korean forms.

We do tend to choose Korean elements when starting a production. There is no particular reason for that other than the fact that it leaves a lot of room for imagination and potential. After the initial selection of material we tend to look towards other cultural influences and material. This process is usually followed by exploring and connecting similar material and performance forms. When I succeed in finding a crossing point of all this material in the process of research, I experience a great deal of satisfaction. I feel as though I am connecting with past cultures beyond continents and generations. That was how Kkok-Du, Ignis fatuus_Rin (2008), PlayingWind (2010), Chaotic Twins (2011) Monkey D’dance (2012), and Play of Tiger+Monkey (2013) were created.

You prefer to work with physical-based performer than verbal oriented, more traditional actors. For example, there was one instance in which the main performer was changed from a traditional theatre actor to a Parkour performer.

In the very beginning I stared working with mostly traditional actors and then more main stream theatre actors and during Monkey D’dance a martial artist came in and during Shakespeare’s Tempest I met a performer who specialized in Parkour and circus. I think that I select performers based on what is required of the piece. The common ground that all these performers have is that they fundamentally have a certain level of physical training and control of their bodies. The Parkour performers are relatively very young. The nature of their work requires them to effectively express movement within a video context and therefor their expressions are rough and attention spans short. I felt as though these characteristics represented their youth and generation and there was a certain innocence to them. I felt as though the frames I had developed in my work were being torn down.

The pieces AnNyong and Playing Wind which were presented at the Ansan Street Arts Festival featured audience participation with the purpose of commemoration.

AnNyong was originally started in the form of a street play intended to meet with people in the square. Until this point I had been more focused on esthetic rather than social commentary but started to become more concerned with people and society after the 2015 Sewol ferry tragedy. I do believe to have found a unique method of NONI in terms of telling such stories through the process of making this performance. The performance consists of white wind characters that represent those who were sacrificed in the tragedy playing hide and seek with the audience members and asking each other how they are doing. It was the opening piece for the 2015 Ansan Street Arts Festival as well as the opening piece for the same festival in 2017. For Playing Wind we used the method of leaving space instead of painting a complete picture. It is a mobile performance that has the audience members physically come into the piece with white butterflies in their hands and walking the path. There are audience members who participate and audience members who watch. I wanted to experiment with the levels of audience being divided.

Can you explain what kinetic theatre is?

It is essentially seeing the body as equal to objects. Under the idea that we are all substances, the idea that when humans die they become substances must be understood before the work is created. There aren’t many movements in the work. Movement is either slow or unnecessary. Those moments can be thought of as an experience of death or other boundaries. Through these experiences people can think about the finite nature of their own lives and existence. The piece that repeatedly emphasizes these things is Things that Remember (2014). Memories are a question that is asked about existence and speaks of time. It started with the question, “Do things have memories?”

Things that Remember could be called a site-specific work. It has been performed in special venues in Korea and overseas as well.

It is generally difficult to find a space that has interesting energy in a city like Seoul where most of the building look similar so it was fortunate to have come across sites such as the Culture Station Seoul 284 (old Seoul Station) and the Seoul Street Arts Creation Center(formerly Guui Intake Station). Things That Remember was performed at EX ESMA in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Long Bien station in Hanoi, Vietnam. The site in Argentina was a naval academy building where many people died after being tortured. It is now a human rights center of sorts and we had a very difficult time because we couldn’t obtain a permit from the government until the very last moment before the performance. Fortunately we obtained it a week before the performance and many audience members related to it due to the resurgence of old memories of the site. Long Bien station is a very famous site in Vietnam and there had never been a performance there. Perhaps it was because it dealt with the media, there was a lot of interest in behalf of the media as well as the audience.

Production Details

Director
KIM Kyung Hee

Reference

E-mailcgnoni@naver.com

Program

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