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Artistes
Yeo Mi-Do and Kim Hyeong-Suk are excited
- they say people in South Korea love
listening to Indian music and that
they want to fuse the music and dance
of the two countries. "Indian music
is very popular in South Korea, everyone
is listening to it. May be after this
visit we can create a composition
that will have an India song with
Korean instruments playing for both
Indian and South Korean dancers,"
Kim told IANS here. Yeo and Kim are
respectively the lead dancer and musicianwith
the National Theatre of Korea, touring
India this month on an invitation
from the Indian Council for Cultural
Relations. The National Theatre of
Korea, set up in 1950, is the first
federally managed theatre in Asia
and has four resident companies. Last
year, the National Drama Company of
Korea - one of the constituents -
performed at the Indian International
Performing Arts Festival, and in its
partnership initiative, it has invited
seven Indian performers to stage their
work on the South Korean stage. Two
other included companies, the National
Dance Company and the National Orchestra
of Korea, through their overseas performances,
are attempting to introduce traditional
South Korean dance and music to India.
"Musical
similarities are many," says Kim.
Music in East Asia, China, South Korea
do have similar threads running through
them and Indian music is simply gorgeous.
"In rhythm, melodies, in the nature
of the instruments," he adds. Modified
instruments like the 25-string gayageum,
10-string daeajaeng, and modeeumbuk
are being introduced to the world.
In the Indian tour this year has been
included the "Nam-do-Arirang", a piece
of chamber music composed for Orchestra
Asia in which South Korean musicians
work with the Chinese and the Japanese.
There is also an item in the repertoire
in which African rhythm accompanies
the very traditional music of the
Kyung-ki region of South Korea that
has been brought to Indian audiences.
In between are short strains of "Salaam-e-Ishq"
and "Khabhi Alvida Naa Kehna", played
to the accompaniment of Korean instruments.
Last year two Indian artistes were
with the Orchestra, playing the tabla
and the flute, and they also learnt
to play the bo-kh drum, a traditional
percussion instrument used in martial
arts performances. "Both Indians and
South Koreans are very rhythmic people,"
he says, adding, "Koreans buy a lot
of Indian music." Dancer Yeo has been
on stage for 40 years. "Like in India,
in South Korea too experience counts
in the performing arts," Yeo says.
There are three main kinds of dances
in South Korea, the folk, the devotional
and for the elite, something like
court dancing, she says. Yeo, on her
third visit to India, had seen some
Manipuri performances in South Korea
in an exchange programme. She hopes
now to catch up with kathak and bharatanatyam,
and then come up with a fusion. "Introducing
thematic dancing from South Korea
to India is not an easy task," she
says. The hae-gum solo tries expressing
feelings one would have watching the
sunrise after spending a night on
the snow-covered Sul-ak mountain.
The spring dance is the soliloquy
of a flower, accompanied by the calm
ga-ya-gum music. The fan dance is
the most famous dance from South Korea,
created by the well known choreographer
Choi Seung-hui in the 1940s. For producer
Lim Sang-Woo, the India "tour has
been a great experience". "Now the
world is going global and countries
must know more about one another's
culture," he says, hoping to bring
to India, the land of dance and music,
more of South Korea's traditional
music and dancing blended with the
modern.
Courtesy:
www.jansamachar.net, November 28,
2007
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