Often found at theaters and museums, Kwon Mee-yoo has covered a wide range of cultural fields from K-pop and dramas to theater and fine art for over a decade. Now as K-Culture Desk editor, she tries to connect Korean culture with global readers through fresh perspectives.
New Asian Arts Theatre explores contemporary geopolitical diversity
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Frie Leysen, left, curator of the upcoming Asian Arts Theatre in Gwangju, explains the 2015-16 season program "Our Masters" at a press conference at the Foreign Press Center in central Seoul, Tuesday. On the right is Asian Arts Theatre artistic director Kim Seong-hee. / Yonhap
By Kwon Mee-yoo
By Kwon Mee-yoo
The Asian Arts Theatre (AAT), part of the new Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, announced its 2015-16 season program which begins in September. It will highlight milestones in contemporary performing arts and current issues in Asia.
The season consists of two major sections ― "Our Masters" and "Asia Window." The Our Masters program is curated by Belgian festival director Frie Leysen, who has been at the forefront of discovering new forms of theater. Asia Window is co-organized by five curators from five different Asian countries, representing the vibrancy of performing arts across Asia.
Kim Seong-hee, artistic director of the theater, said the two programs complement each other, providing a better understanding of Asia from the perspective of inside and outside as well as past and present.
"Our Master presents a panorama of past and present contemporary art from an external approach, while Asia Window explores the potential of Asian art from an internal perspective," Kim said.
Leysen, the 2014 Erasmus Prize winner recognized for her contribution to contemporary theater, agreed with Kim's remarks, saying that an organic way of enabling exchanges between the programs made them richer.
Leysen will introduce five masters who changed the performing arts over the last century.
Philip Glass and Robert Wilson's groundbreaking "Einstein on the Beach, An Opera in Four Acts" will be staged from Oct. 22 to 25. The opera premiered in 1976 and breaks conventions in every aspect.
"There is no storyline and no characters to identify with. It is an opera with synthesizers. In this opera, all art forms are the same and there is no hierarchy ― it can be seen as visual artwork, theater and opera," Leysen said. "
Though it was first performed some 40 years ago, Leysen regards the opera as a milestone in the history of contemporary art and brought it to Korea for the first time. "It is old indeed, but it was revived in 2012. It is a production that changed every notion of conventional theater and position of artists in a society. I am glad to stage this show again," the Belgian curator said.
Etchells is not well-known in Asia and Leysen decided to introduce three of his works, sampling the characteristics of the artist and his troupe.
"Each actor has strong personality and they co-create every production. The Last Adventures is a big show, while Exhibition is set on a nearly bare stage with only two actors," Leysen said.
On March 26 and 27, the AAT will present Swiss director Christoph Marthaler's "Tessa Blomstedt Will Not Surrender."
Leysen referred to the director as a person who expresses sad nostalgia with humor. "He is not saying you are like this, but we are like this, including himself in the view. The performance is about dreams and longing with a lot of music from cheap contemporary popular songs to folk and classical music," she said.
The fourth show, staged from May 6 to 8, centers on an artistic movement, not a single artist, which revolutionized art.
"The Butoh Project is a dance style developed in Japan in the 1960s by Hijikata Tatsumi. The dancers distance themselves from beauty contest of art to show the ugly side of humans," Leysen said. "We asked a young Japanese choreographer, who used to be a Butoh dancer, to reflect the Butoh movement and political, social and cultural scene today."
The last installment of Our Masters program highlights South African artist William Kentridge through "The Return of Ulysses" and a new piece "More Sweetly Play the Dance" on May 28 and 29.
"Kentridge is most famous for artistic films and drawings, but this is going to show another facet of him," Leysen said.
Leysen said the artists have a very sharp look at the society we live in. The humor and love we have as people reflects the fragility of human beings. Most of the participating artists are multidisciplinary. "Artists are not just working in a discipline, but working in different art forms, which makes it more interesting to see how they come together in a production," Leysen said.
Asia Window
The ATT artistic director Kim said she picked five curators from different countries to portray the diversity of contemporary Asia.
"There are so many Asians and the five curators will weave the dynamicity of performing arts in Asia," Kim said. "Previously, the Asian art history was written by the West. Now it is the time for Asians to look at and listen to each other to create the discourse independently."
Opening the "Asia Window" section is Jakarta-based Helly Minarti's "Gaze. Project. Myth" from Oct. 8 to 10. Minarti will reverse the viewpoint of the Westerners in the late 19th century and how it reinforced self-Orientalism in Asia.
Chinese researcher You Mi will present "Transgression and Syncretism" on March 11-13. Inspired by the Silk Road, the nomadic performance will require the audience to be on the move, capturing a geological moment of Eurasia to understand contemporary geopolitics.
Egyptian curator Tarek Abou El Fetouh's "Time is Out of Joint," performed from April 8 to 17, mixes up artistic events held at different times and places to raise questions about the key transitional moments in art history.
Raya Martin from Manila explores the forgotten side of Asian culture through "UNdocumenta" from April 27 to 30. In the form of a non-competitive film festival, the performance will feature lost films and works of unknown authorship to cover Asian history.
Korean musician Jang Young-gyu will present "Vanishing Voices" from May 13 to 15. The project will play a variety of music and values that have been forgotten, exploring the paradox of the old and the future.
For more information, visit www.asianartstheatre.org or call 062-410-3617.