Jon Dunbar is a copy editor at The Korea Times, as well as editor of the Foreign Community page and curator of the Korea Times Archive. If you have suggestions for possible articles, or wish to contribute articles yourself, contact jdunbar@koreatimes.co.kr.
Seoul Culture Club to offer performing arts in 8 languages
Members of Seoul Culture Club rehearse on stage at Eulji Space in downtown Seoul last Saturday. / Courtesy of Bereket Alemayehu
By Jon Dunbar
By Bereket Alemayehu
A performing arts festival, titled Seoul Culture Club, is coming to downtown Seoul, featuring short performances by artists of diverse cultural backgrounds and languages who currently live in Korea. Scheduled for June 23 to 24 at Eulji Space, an independent theater in downtown Seoul's Euljiro area, the event will feature 10 performers from eight countries on five continents, representing nine different cultures and performing in eight different languages, comprised of singers, actors, filmmakers, photographers and stage performers.
“Korea is becoming more and more multicultural, with a growing influx of people from diverse cultural backgrounds who find their home here for work, education or family relationships,” Uncertainty Principle Creative Collective (UP Collective), the event's organizers, said in a press release. “But while 'K-culture' is trending up in far corners of the world, the mainstream Korean society has not yet, in a genuine sense, opened up to the cultural influences brought by its immigrants and visitors.”
Tae Kim Conan, co-founder of Seoul Culture Club / Courtesy of Bereket Alemayehu
Tae Kim Conan, a Korean American writer and director, told The Korea Times that Eulji Space is an independent theater-based creative company that makes plays. It started about four years ago but the current structure has been around for two and a half years.
“We run the space which comprises a small theater on the fourth floor, a wine bar on the fifth floor and the rooftop,” he said. “In addition to that on the third floor we have a shared office space which we may change into a cafe or bookstore or both in the near future. There are about six people who spend their full time working here. We have other staff members too, most of whom are theater artists. They may work on this and that project. We have a community of a fair number of artists.”
Eulji Space creates, makes and performs dramas, operates the theater and rents out the space to other theater groups, thus the founding artists make art together and do business together.
“One thing we have been talking about was to create a platform for all kinds of performing arts. To create a platform and build a community, regardless of where they come from, for any nationality and culture. This is the first real venture we are doing,” Conan said.
Members of Seoul Culture Club pose on the rooftop of Eulji Space. / Courtesy of Bereket Alemayehu
“Definitely Korea is becoming a more and more multicultural and multiethnic country. I believe it's a recent phenomenon. There is a lot of art, but the way we connect and enjoy art, there is a kind of wall on the cultural and ethnic lines, so the idea is why don't we bring everyone together? Giving a chance to see each other is the idea. So, we are open to all forms of art and in the end, we are all connected. We are not funded by any organization this time we rely on the creative company members.”
Justin Nemeth, one of the founding members of Seoul Culture Club, is an affiliate artist of UP Collective and a co-producer of this event. An American artist with degrees in theater from NYU and Shanghai, in 2019 he organized an event titled "Showcase Your Culture to the People of Shanghai" at Shanghai Theatre Academy. The event featured artists from Georgia, Ghana, Jamaica, Colombia, France, Poland and the United States, who presented songs, dances, short films and theatrical monologues.
Justin Nemeth, co-founder of Seoul Culture Club / Courtesy of Bereket Alemayehu
For Nemeth, the idea of Seoul Culture Club is to build bilingual, trilingual or multilingual theater productions in Seoul.
“I am from New York and studied in New York University and Shanghai,” he said. “When I was there, accessing the art industry was easy, even in Shanghai, so I want help to create an environment highlighted to the international community here in Seoul. And the other idea that came from it is that at times I feel it is a little tough to meet people organically in Seoul. In other big cities, like New York or London, you can easily meet people. Here it's a little tough to do it, considering the cultural aspects. So, we are trying to create an environment where the audience will be able to interact with performers after or during the shows. People can start to come for regular events and be able to mingle in that way. I think there are a lot of Koreans who also want to mingle with the international crowds. I have been living in different cities for a while. I want to be able to create a sense of home for other people who aren't from here.”
Turkish-born stage artist Elmas Halici, who has been in Korea for 10 years working as an interpreter, will perform Kanto, a popular genre of Turkish music, with a dance accompanied by a song. Kanto has been performed for over 120 years on stages, and for most of that time it has been linked with the Turkish women's rights movement when Turkish women gained the right to appear on stage, “I am preparing the Kanto because it isn't known by many people here,” she said. “I am sure people would like it.”
Turkish-born stage artist Elmas Halici / Courtesy of Bereket Alemayehu
Nitarisoa Rakotovelo, a Madagascar-born poetic artist who grew up in the West African countries of Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal, is an exchange student from France's University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, studying here at Seoul National University. She has been diligently practicing the Kabary, a traditional oratorical art in Madagascar, to perform it on the stage in French. Malagasy Kabary is a poeticized speech performed in front of an audience. It is highly structured and consists of proverbs, maxims, rhetorical figures and wordplay. It was inscribed in 2021 on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Madagascar-born poetic artist Nitarisoa Rakotovelo / Courtesy of Bereket Alemayehu
Jonathan Marc Dickey, a photographer and videographer who has lived for three years in Korea, is going to show some photographs and linked stories documenting a year-and-a-half hitchhiking trip he embarked on from Los Angeles to New York. Eventually, a character called “One True King of the Road” evolved out of that experience. “As a photographer and videographer I am linked up with some writers and musicians and we are trying to get a little artists' community, to get a space for an outlet of artistic talents, to get a bond of artistic endeavors,” he said.
Photographer and videographer Jonathan Marc Dickey / Courtesy of Bereket Alemayehu
Visit
for more information or follow
@seoul.culture.club on Instagram
.
Bereket Alemayehu is an Ethiopian photo artist, social activist and writer based in Seoul. He's also a co-founder for a
social initiative called Hanokers
and freelance contributor for Pressenza Press Agency. Visit
for more information.