A couple of weeks ago Kat and I along with Emily and her parents immersed ourselves in Korean culture at Korea house.

Korea house is built in traditional Joseon architectural style and offers a traditional Korean meal followed by a traditional performance and was one of the things on my list to do before I leave Korea.

We decided only to go for the performance as the meal was pretty expensive and Kat, Emily and I have unanimously agreed to stop pretending and admit we don’t like Korean food!

We got there early and wondered around the grounds for a bit. Most of the buildings were closed or housing people who were eating their per performance meal. But the grounds were very pretty with concealed speakers playing traditional Korean music.

The performance was pretty short but was very good, although Emily’s dad managed to sleep through most if it just waking up to clap as each performance finished!

I will try and explain some of what I saw below.

One of the first dances was a traditional Korean fan dance. One of my students usually turns up for school with two missive fans or a drum. Now I understand why!

Korean fan dancing is usually performed by female dancers and is said to have evolved under the influence of both shamanic dancing and traditional Joseon court dancing.

The next performance was P’an Sori or traditional Korean opera. Now I’m not an opera fan but I’ve never heard opera sound quite like this!

Then we saw an hour-glass drum dance or Chang go ch’um. This was apparently part of a farmers dance performed at rural festivals. It was very impressive to watch as the dancers danced and beat their drums in complete unison.

Then it was time to sit and listen to some traditional Korean instruments. I know some people enjoyed it but to me the whole thing sounded like someone standing on a cat. I took a video just to record how horrible the sound was!

After that there was another dance by women with fans but this was lot slower and less spectacular. It was called Sanjochum and would have originally been performed by a solo dancer with someone playing a string instrument. The dancers graceful movements accompanied by the Sanjo music is apparently widely regarded to be the one that best expresses the sensibility of the Korean people.

Lastly it was the turn of men with white ribbons on their heads called Sangmo. This left me giggling in my seat as the as they walked around the stage bobbing their head to keep their ribbons swinging.

This dance was one of the more impressive of the evening but apparently it has more to do with the music than the dance. According to the Mu Gung Hwa Korean dance academy… (website here)

This dance has been performed by Korean farmers every spring and fall for centuries to assure a bountiful crop and successful harvest.  Today, the Farmer Dance is performed simply to celebrate, any time of year….This dance expresses HINO-era or intense joy and hope for the future.

No additional accompaniment is needed because the drums – Sogo, Changgo, and Puk, and the gongs – Ching (large) and Kwaengwari (small) make plenty of noise to scare away even the most pesky troubles.

The Sangmo or Ribbon Hat Dancer is the star of the performance as he spins a ribbon from the top of his hat while performing acrobatic moves!

The performance go a whole lot more impressive when a man appeared with a very long ribbon on his head.

As the performance drew to a close some of the girls headed into the audience in search of unwilling volunteers. Before I knew it one of them had handed me her drum/tambourine type thing and was tugging at my arm. I had no choice but to follow her to the stage and make a complete fool of myself being nervous as hell and not having a clue what I was doing, as the video below shows. This being dragged up on stage is starting to become a regular occurrence.

Korea House was a fantastic night thoroughly enjoyed by all, including Emily’s dad who was asleep throughout. Afterwards we got our photo taken with some of the dancers.

Korea House – group picture.
Back row some of the dancers. front row: Emily’s dad, me, Katrina, Emily’s mum, Emily.

* Posted by j150vsc on 11/05/2007.