By Seo Dong-shin
Staff Reporter
Having the world at your doorstep is one of the great merits of living in a global metropolitan city. Perhaps Seoul is truly turning into one, at least in the arts sphere.
Next month, Seoul residents will have an opportunity to check out a barrage of top acts from the international art community, whether it be music, theater, dance, performance, or all of them combined _ as the fad has it around the world.
Springwave Festival 2007, the first ``international interdisciplinary arts festival,'' will take place from May 4 to 30, in seven venues including leading galleries, art halls and theaters, bringing 15 cutting-edge names from seven countries in cooperation with other festivals held worldwide.
Interdisciplinary art is the combination of two or more genres into one project. It has gained ground as a new, experimental driving force to boost creativity and aesthetics of the existing arts.
Renowned American choreographer William Forsythe's ``Scattered Crowd,'' which will be staged on May 4 and 5 at the Rodin Gallery in central Seoul, for example, will fill up the room with four thousands white balloons of different sizes. Whether to carefully walk around or between the balloons, or to rearrange the installment by creating your own contemporary dance to the music, is up to the visitors.
Drama fans will be thrilled to know that two pieces heading to the time-honored Avignon Theatre Festival will be presented in Seoul first this year. Highly-acclaimed German dramaturge Raimund Hoghe, who worked earlier with Pina Bausch Theater, has produced a solo work, ``36, Avenue Georges Mandel'' _ the title coming from the place in Paris where legendary soprano Maria Callas died in 1977. It is invited to the French festival in July. The piece will go on stage from May 11 and 12 at Jayu Theater inside the Seoul Arts Center in southern Seoul.
``Hey Girl,'' another piece to be staged in the French festival, is directed by Italian Romeo Castellucci, who established the theatre company Societas Raffaello Sanzio in 1981 to encompass all art forms, and has a dedicated following in Europe for his experimental pieces addressing various senses of perception. It will go on stage in Seoul at Arko Arts Theater in Taehangno, on May 24 and 25.
Also on offer for art fans is German-British artist Tino Sehgal's performance ``Instead of allowing some thing to rise up to your face dancing Bruce and Dan and other things'' at the Total Museum of Contemporary Art from May 8 to 30. The dancer, choreographer and performance artist's interactive show is known to question the concept of economy and the material world. His works are never documented, which means the only chance to experience it is to actually visit the performance venue.
From South Korea, leading names of the avant-garde, such as dancer and choreographer Ahn Eun-me and iconic underground band Uh Uh Boo Project will take part. Ahn's new work, ``I Cannot Talk to You'' is about communication in the modern world, in which oppressed women express tears and laughter through their bodies. It will be staged at Jayu Theater of the Seoul Arts Center on May 7 and 8.
Those interested in music may also find Hahn Rowe's ``Project Nong-Ak'' interesting. The New York-based electronica artist, who has collaborated with Moby, R.E.M. and David Byrne among others, invites audiences to a live performance of digitally mixed sounds of nongak, a traditional Korean music genre deriving from farmers' folk music. It will be presented at LIG Art Hall in southern Seoul on May 15 and 16.
For more information on other participating artists and schedule, visit www.springwave.org.
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