Jaha Koo’s 쿠쿠 was our theatrical production of the year in 2023, so we’re looking forward to his return in a more mainstream location.
This production was due to be presented at the Purcell Room in May 2024 but was postponed for a year due to family circumstances.
Ticket-holders are given the following advisory by the box office:
“Please note that this performance contains live cooking on stage. There will be intense smells of food being prepared.
The following foods are used in the performance: cucumber, carrots, chilli peppers, onion, garlic, seaweed, curly parsley, mint leaves, peanut oil, egg, fish sauce and kimchi.
Allergen information: peanut oil, garlic, onion, chilli pepper and egg are used in this performance.“
Jaha Koo’s Haribo Kimchi at the Purcell Room
Floating aromas of a steamy simmering soup, the sharp sound of a knife quickly slicing spring onions, the hissing and sizzling of mushrooms on a scorching fire.
In Haribo Kimchi, we find ourselves in a pojangmacha, a typical late-night snack bar that can be found scattered across the streets of South Korea.
There we meet several lost souls who take us on a culinary journey, exploring food culture as a form of language that reveals the structure of a society.
In several absurdist and touching anecdotes, they recount the diaspora of Kimchi culture, cannibalism during the great famine, the sour pain of unadulterated racism and the deep umami taste of home.
After the Hamartia Trilogy (2021), in which he delved into the far-reaching imperialism in East Asia, the South Korean theatre maker and composer Jaha Koo returns with his newest creation.
In his typical hybrid style, combining music, cutting-edge video and robotic performers, the artist reflects on cultural assimilation with all its conflicts and paradoxes. In an exceptional performance that plays with all the senses, he alters our perception of food for good.
Credits
Jaha Koo concept, text, direction, music, sound and video
Jaha Koo, Seri, Toad and Haribo performers
Dries Douibi dramaturgy
Eunkyung Jeong scenography and media operation
Pol Heyvaert artistic advice
Korneel Coessens technical coordination
Bart Huybrechts and Babette Poncelet technique
Idella Craddock cuckoo hacking and toad development
Wim Clapdorp production coordination
CAMPO production
Co-production: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Rideau de Bruxelles; Theater Utrecht, SPRING festival (Utrecht); Festival d’Automne à Paris, Théâtre de la Bastille (Paris); Tangente St-Pölten; & Espoo theatre (Finland); Kampnagel International Summer Festival (Hamburg); Sophiensaele (Berlin); Meet You Festival (Valladolid); Bunker (Ljubljana); National Theatre and Concert Hall Taipei; The Divine Comedy International Theater Festival/Teatr Laznia Nowa (Kraków); and Perpodium
With the support of the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government via Cronos Invest and the Flemish Government