Chuncheon Mime Festival Ready to Heat Up
By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
The 2009 Chuncheon International Mime Festival will kick off an eight-day event that will run from May 24 to 31 in seven different venues in the lake city.
The festival features 100 Korean mime companies and performing teams and 12 foreign troupes from six countries ― Russia, France, Australia, Macao, Hong Kong and Japan.
The event began in 1989 as the Korean Mime Festival. It became the Chuncheon International Mime Festival in 1995 when foreign mime companies started joining the festival.
Marking the 21st event, the festival will offer various types of performance based on body movement and artistic images such as contemporary mime, physical theater, movement theater, visual theater, street theater, installation performance and site-specific theater.
The festival is designed for various audiences ranging from families seeking an outing together to performance enthusiasts, from children and their parents.
Main performances in the festival will begin with Russian troupe Black Sky White's ``Astronomy for Insects'' on May 25-26 at Chuncheon Culture & Art Center and Men of Steel's ``Cookie Cutter and Friends'' from May 25 to 28 at Chuncheon Puppet Theater.
``Astronomy for Insects'' is a masterpiece of total theater with acting, music, background settings and costumes that fit together perfectly. Scary monsters and creepy crawlies twitch and squirm in a dance macabre of feverish rhythms. They are the products of a riotous imagination mixed with beauty and horror, malice and mischief.
``Cookie Cutter and Friends'' is about the story of three mad chefs contending with animated food in the kitchen. Three puppeteers animate two cookie cutters as main characters while transforming kitchen utensils and foodstuffs into spaceships, army sergeants and hurricanes atop a long kitchen bench. The puppeteers remain visible and theatrical at all times, with their stylish movements and comic facial expressions expertly conveying what the objects are up to.
Featuring three 15-minute episodes, the breaks between episodes get the performers up close and personal with the audience. They interact with the audience, playfully acknowledge their roles, before being sent back behind the bench by a threatening alarm that pulls them back into madness. They open up the curtains under the bench so that the audience may catch a glimpse of an object they are will see in the following episode and anticipate its arrival on the stage.
Melbourne-based performing arts company's ``Strange Fruit'' to be staged on May 29 to 31 at Udamari Square creates and performs a remarkable style of work that fuses theatre, dance and circus, using a unique aerial apparatus. Perched atop five-meter high flexible poles of original design, the troupe deliver a spectacular performance, bending and swaying in the air, captivating and engaging the audience in absolute fascination.
Originally based an the image of a field of wheat swaying in the breeze, the poles' extreme strength and flexibility allow the performer to bow to impossible angles, swaying back and forth in a hypnotizing dance as the audience looks up in wonder. With a world-renowned repertoire that celebrates a wide variety of themes and stories, the company has achieved near-cult status in almost every and continent across the globe. Performing regularly at festivals, special events and private functions, their sublime, hypnotic beauty is truly remarkable and must be experienced to appreciate its full effect.
The festival also offers up some co-productions, with companies joining forces for spectacular results. These include "Blik" by Korea's Homo Ludens Company and France's The Company Monsieur et Madame O at 7 p.m. on May 28 to 29, at Chuncheon Culture & Art Center, ``Maids'' by Korea's Sadari Movement Lab and the Macao Cultural Center at 9 p.m. on May 25-26 at Bomnae Theatre, and "Why Not" by Fringe Mime and Movement Lab, two groups from Hong Kong at 10:30 p.m. on May 27-28 at Mime House.
This year's festival also presents various events for visitors. ``Ah! Surajang'' on May 25 in downtown Chuncheon will change ordinary city spaces into spots of art and fun. In a venue called Udamari on Goseumdochi Island, visitors can look forward to enthusiastic all-night performances and events.
``Friday Madness'' and ``Dokkaebi Nanjang'' will present a party for artistic types and festival lovers in an open space where they can freely express their artistic sense.
For more information, visit www.mimefestival.com or call (033) 242-0585.