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Category Archives: Event reports and reviews
What is aural image is conjured up when you hear of a Civic Chorale? Perhaps a worthy amateur choral society, used to performing madrigals with rather too many singers and too much vibrato, plodding through an annual Messiah at Easter time? Think again when it comes to the Suwon Civic Chorale. This forty-strong choir from the home of one of Korea's world heritage sites - the Hwaseong Fortress - can justifiably call themselves world class.
The sound they produce is totally familiar to those who move in the circles of good Western European choirs. Well-blended, warm-sounding, neither too full of vibrato nor with the acid tone of some of the early music specialists. The sopranos and altos, when singing in unison, ...
B-boys promote Korean tourism at KCC
23-Aug-08
It’s now more than a year since the somewhat controversial launch of the Korea, Sparkling tourism brand. As I suspected at the time, people would get used to it in due course, and now the logo has become a familiar feature on the various tourist literature available.
The branding, together with the Han Style campaign and other investments in the tourism industry is all part of the effort to reduce Korea’s tourism deficit – an early priority of the Lee Government ((See the minutes of President Lee's first cabinet meeting, where the new tourism minister Yu In-chon is put on the spot (search the article for "tourism deficit"). ))
"Tourism is ... a future growth industry, but the tourism deficit has worsened, ...
Free Words at Mayfair Public Library
20-Aug-08
When I went to the Free Words exhibition at Mayfair Public Library it was a grey Friday evening, and consequently did not see the works at their best. It was the last day of the main show, and the artwork seemed to have been forgotten in a rather drab-feeling, unloved public-sector space on the top floor. Sumer Erek’s work, Newspaper House, was in an unadvertised and unlit side room which looked as if no-one ever went in there. The stairway and main exhibition space was dominated by Marko Stepanov’s fifteen life-size photographs of individual activists at Hyde Park’s Speakers Corner, clearly consistent with the exhibition’s main theme. Quieter but more thought-provoking were Marisol Cavia’s paper sculptures, the most striking ones ...
Suh Do-ho in Psycho Buildings
31-Jul-08
Psycho Buildings is a cosmopolitan collaboration in which artists from as far afield as Tokyo and Cuba “take on” architecture. Suh Do-ho (right) is one of the diaspora of Korean artists working in various countries around the world. Like Baik Nam June, Suh has chosen to make his home in America.
Suh’s work has in the past explored aspects of identity, from his Some / one sculpture of a warrior crafted out of US military dog-tags, to his floor made of tiny figures holding up a sheet of glass. In another group of installations, his trademark is the recreation of interiors and exteriors of domestic spaces by carefully hanging sheets of diaphanous silk or nylon. He has created both western and ...
Official photos from the Dano festival
17-Jul-08
Justina Jang of the Korean Cultural Promotion Agency, the organisers of the Dano Festival in Trafalgar Square, has kindly sent me some of the official photos of the event, which I have now uploaded to Flickr.
Some good photos of the very entertaining Noridan (above), some great crowd scenes which really convey the atmosphere of the event, plus one or two of the Yoon Band (below)
You can see the slideshow over on the LKL Flickr account here, or look at the thumbnails on LKL here.
Links
KCPA website
Read all LKL articles about the Dano Festival 2008
Jennifer Barclay reports from the Korean Food Festival, held in the garden of the Fountain Pub, New Malden, Saturday 12 July 2008
By 10.30 on Saturday morning, I’d already done my best to introduce millions of BBC Radio Four listeners to the delights of kimchi.
I’d been invited onto the travel show Excess Baggage to talk about the experiences described in my new book Meeting Mr Kim: Or How I Went to Korea and Learned to Love Kimchi. What an appropriate thing to do on the day of the Korean Food Festival in New Malden – to have Sandi Toksvig, one of the beeb’s top presenters, eating kimchi on air and know the garlicky whiff of it was pervading the whole of ...
Matthew Jackson encounters Lee Chang Dong for the first time
“Good, but gruelling” was Jason Bechervaise’s summary of the film for me in the lift in on the way up to the screening of ‘Green Fish’ at the Cultural Centre on Thursday night. I later learned this film had been the subject of his dissertation, but I found this succinct version to be remarkably apt.
The story follows a young man returning to his hometown to be faced with unemployment and a general sense of alienation. He is beguiled by a mixture of lust and lucre into the world of the minor-league mafia boss Bae Tae-kon and his paramour Mi-ae. This choice leads initially to financial security, and ultimately to adultery, murder, ...
Impossible landscapes
07-Jul-08
Recently in London we’ve seen two seemingly very different responses to traditional Korean and Chinese landscape painting. In March we had Lim Taek (임택) at I-MYU; just finished at Union we had Lee Sea-hyun (이세현). Both artists portray the familiar mountains, the occasional ancient pavilion dotting the landscape. But Lim’s mountains are simple blocks of white against a rich blue sky, and while Lee respects the conventions and has a blank background against which his carefully delineated peaks are set, he defies conventions in another way by presenting his landscapes in a ghostly red. Considering the two responses side by side allows some interesting similarities and contrasts to be highlighted.
Left: Lim Taek: Transferred Landscape. Right: Lee Sea-hyun: Between Red
Stand in ...
From Elgar to Shamans and Spicy Squid
30-Jun-08
An Evening with UK-based Korean Artists, sponsored by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Cultural Centre, 27 June 2008
Report by Jennifer Barclay, with photos also by David Kilburn and Saharial
Let’s hope this is the first of many evenings devoted to young Korean artists living in the UK, because the Korean Cultural Centre provides an ideal central venue – and Friday night events mean out-of-towners like me can run across to Waterloo and catch the last train home, knowing we don’t have to be up early next morning for work. Judging by the turnout of well over a hundred guests, if word is spread through various channels there could be a regular audience for similar evenings organised ...
Behind the scenes with the KAA
29-Jun-08
With photos by Seong Hee Jo
When you turn up to a cultural event, it’s not always clear how much effort (and stress) has gone into organising it. But even with the most informal of events, there’s a great deal of work that has gone on in the preceding weeks.
With the KAA event at the KCC on Friday, it’s difficult for me to say how polished the evening was because I was presenting, so I can’t say how it came across to the audience. From my own perspective it all miraculously came together, despite last minute hitches.
Some of the problems had surfaced the day before: namely, precisely what software was available for projecting artwork images onto the walls of the KCC. ...
Maps political and pictorial
16-Jun-08
I'm sorry I never had any time to write up the Map exhibition at the KCC properly. Alas, it's over now. I managed to miss most of Beth McKillop's informative talk, and never had the chance to persuade Shin Eunjeong to show me around. If I get a moment I'll do a quick Reader's Digest version of the catalogue, but in the meantime here's the map I found most fun - because it's a little bit controversial.
It looks innocuous enough to start with. Here's the little label that goes with it.
Sorry it's a bit blurred, but you can read it.
A nice pretty pictorial map. The coastline has nice pretty crinkly edges. It's not a terribly good photo, but I think ...
Yoon and Tall Lee crowd-surf in Kingston
07-Jun-08
Saharial reports from the Yoon Band's gig at The Peel, Kingston, 6 June 2008
Arriving at 5.30pm, Y.B. (Yoon Band) was almost instantly swamped by the dozen or so Korean youngsters that had been lurking for a while, and amiably chatted to them whilst posing for photos and signing autographs. I chatted briefly to Lee from Steranko, one of the support acts, who knew Yoon Do Hyun from the days he had been in Korea. His band had been banned from Korea now since the Couch incident where the singer had stripped entirely during a performance. Lee’s performance is frenetic and involves shirt removal and swearing, probably why they found themselves no longer welcome in a Korea suddenly sensitive to rock ...
We are not Chinese: Do not miss JUMP!
20-Apr-08
JUMP! Yegam Theatre at Sadler's Wells Peacock Theatre, till 10 May 2008
Winner 'Comedy Award' at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2006
Korean National Assembly 'Grand Prize for Drama & Musical,' 2006
BBC TV 'The Royal Variety Performance,' December 2006
Review by Grace Kim
To start with what everyone already knows, it's pretty much impossible not to enjoy JUMP! even if you happen to be a sad old grouch sucking on rotten lemons all day. If you haven't seen it already, and even if you have, take another look at this international smash hit Korean classic-- before someone gets hurt!
"Don't go to the cinema, don't stay in and watch TV. Go and see the movie length Korean show Jump! and you'll get ...
Han Sang-hee and the Art of Happiness
29-Feb-08
Matthew Jackson reviews "Virgin Snow" - the first film to be screened at the KCC, Tuesday 26 February
The screening of Virgin Snow at the new Korean Cultural Centre was the inaugural session in its programme of monthly film nights, and I felt it would be well worth attending for that reason alone. From the little I had read about it, the film itself looked like an average sort of heavy romance movie, which is not generally the kind I go for. I was pleasantly surprised.
The centre provided an ideal setting. There was an opportunity to meet and talk with others before and after the film, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of exquisite rice cakes. The director of the film, Han ...
Woyzeck: review
25-Jan-08
Sadari Movement Laboratory: Woyzeck
Part of the London Mime Festival
Review by Saharial
I am not an expert on mime or dance in any way, and lack any technical terms of description and I also have no real point of reference or comparison as dance is not my forte. Thanks to Philip though I was given the opportunity to watch the Sadari Movement Laboratory's interpretation of Woyzeck which plays at the South Bank until Saturday. I had no idea what to expect -- all I knew was that it was mime or dance of a German play set to Argentinean tango music. 'Woyzeck' by the German playwright Georg Buchner is the story of a soldier that gets driven mad by various events and ...
Starbucks morality
13-Nov-07
Han Hyeong-mo: Madame Freedom (1956)
Round 2 of the Korean classic film double bill...
In Shin Sang-ok's 1961 film which formed the first part of the double bill on 5 November, a widow cannot talk to a man outside her family, and is expected to obey her mother-in-law. Admittedly, the film is set in the Korean countryside, rather than the metropolis, but the conservative morality is the sort that you expect to see in many Korean films.
Wind back the clock 5 years to Han Hyeong-mo's Madame Freedom and the shock of that film becomes apparent. A couple kiss in the street, even though, according to the male, their relationship is purely casual. Women gather together for drinking and smoking parties. A married ...
Brief Encounter with Chopin
12-Nov-07
Shin Sang-ok: My Mother and Her Guest (1961)
It was a shame to see two of the most interesting films in the London Korean Film Festival -- My Mother and Her Guest and Madame Freedom -- so sparsely attended. The Barbican had generously allocated its largest screen (capacity 286) in anticipation of enthusiastic interest -- but unfortunately only at most 30 people showed up.
To be honest, I had gone mainly out of a sense of duty -- the only other classic Korean film I'd seen to date was Aimless Bullet, which I had found heavy going. So I went with low expectations, anticipating wooden plotlines and acting, and a generally unsophisticated cinematic experience.
I got chatting to a member of the audience ...
Note: this post contain spoilers
It was slightly disappointing to see Screen One of the Odeon West End (seating capacity: 500) somewhat under half full for the London premiere of Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine last Monday. By contrast, No Mercy for the Rude, a film which (from its description at least) is much more in the hackneyed Asia Extreme mainstream, was fully booked for the following night, albeit at the much smaller ICA screen (seating capacity: 185).
At two hours twenty minutes, it's a long film, but somehow time didn't seem to drag. The slowest part was the time up to the point when Shin-ae suffers the calamity which sets off her downward spiral. The nature of the calamity itself was guessable ...
To the furthest verge
17-Oct-07
I-MYU's new gallery space was launched last week with a show by two Korean and one Korean-American artist. The gallery itself is situated in the slightly unfashionable north-east fringes of the City. Unfashionable at least from the perspective of us City types, but if your eyes stray slightly northwards on the map from I-MYU's street the nearest "village" is trendy Hoxton, home of a lively arts scene.
The artists exhibiting in this opening show all address the past in various ways -- in fact Traditional yet Contemporary can almost be seen as the theme for many Korean artists over the past forty years. Yet they also explore other aspects.
Debbie Han's work on display falls into two categories: ceramics and photography. In ...
Jung at Heart
17-Sep-07
Eo-Ulim: In Harmony
Review by Beccy Kennedy
On first sight, you wouldn't realise that any of the three distinctive painting styles had been selected to represent a fusion of Korean and British artistic styles and experiences. The title, Eo-ulim, the Korean term meaning in harmony, particularly used in relation to inter-cultural adaptability ignites interpretations of hybridised, transcultural identities within these images. Additional investigation into the artists' backgrounds and influences further adds to the significance of this harmony. The exhibition works on a logical level due to this curatorial input, although the vivid tones and Surrealist vistas of the paintings make for an aesthetically enjoyable visit to the ArtsDepot, Finchley, regardless of whether the viewer is interested in Korean painting or painting ...
Korean traditional dance at Asia House
25-Jul-07
Peter Corbishley reports on last week's dance event at Asia House
Thanks to some unusual traffic your reviewer arrived late enough to get a front row seat for this unique performance of seven of eleven traditional Korean dances. 'Exciting', 'beautiful', 'unexplored but most interesting' were some of the words and phrases used to introduce this production by the Korean Traditional Music Association at Asia House Wednesday 18th July 2007.
Mi-Ja Won first danced 'Scent of a woman' moving up from the ground and finally returning to the floor focused first on a series of intricate counter tensioning upper body movements before taking up a fan and rising with a more insistent musical accompaniment to dance through the available stage, sometimes with ...
Lim Hyung-joo at SJSS
11-Jun-07
In the first half of the St John's recital on Thursday, Lim Hyung-joo concentrated on the more classical end of the popera spectrum. There was a microphone on stage, and Lim stood behind it, but up until the interval the evening was un-miked. Having heard a couple of his performances on YouTube I was wondering whether he had the voice for opera, but for the first half of the programme he cranked up his vocal volume and his voice was much more operatic than his YouTube videos led me to expect.
Dressed in a mid-grey tail-coat with contrasting reveres on the collar, one's ears were expecting a showy performance to fit in with what the eyes were seeing. Looking at the ...
Koryo Saram - the Unreliable People
10-May-07
Report of a documentary film screening at SOAS on 2 May, by Michael Rank
Koryo Saram - The Unreliable People is a fascinating one-hour documentary about the 200,000 ethnic Koreans who were deported to Kazakhstan by Stalin in 1937. It includes archive footage never seen before outside the former Soviet Union as well as interviews with some of the deportees. Koreans first started setting in the Russian Far East in the 1860s, fleeing extreme poverty, and their numbers grew after the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910.
Grotesquely, Stalin suspected them of being pro-Japanese and dubbed them "unreliable people" and deported them some 4,000 miles west to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and parts of the USSR, together with other minorities whom he distrusted including ...
