May is getting very busy, making up for the slow three months we’ve had since the end of January. Highlights include the Festival of Korean Dance, Min Jin Lee in Cambridge, a return visit by Jaha Koo with his historically-aware talking rice cookers, and London Craft Week.
Live performance
- Jambinai play Dingwalls, Camden, on 15 May
- A new stage play, The Comfort Woman, is at Rosemary Branch Theatre 13-15 May
- Jaha Koo’s Haribo Kimchi is at the Purcell Room, 24-25 May
- Composer-pianist Yeonjoon Yoon performs at Milton Court on 17 May
- The Festival of Korean Dance has three different programmes:
- Kontemporary Korea (double bill): Glasgow (16 May), Newcastle (18 May), London (22 May) and Bournemouth (24 May)
- Burnt Offering, by 99 Art Company: London (25 May)
- Cheok, by Ae-soon Ahn: London (31 May – 1 June); Salford (3-4 June)
Exhibitions
- Jaejun Lee’s solo show The Blue in Pots is at Contemporary Ceramics, 2 – 25 May
- For London Craft Week, both Soluna Fine Craft and Lloyd Choi Gallery feature a number of Korean craftspeople at Cromwell Place, 15 – 19 May
- Haein Jum’s exhibition Mountainous Mothers is in Studio 3, Peckham Levels, until 3 May
- Shin Chul’s solo ceramics exhibition, Objects of Propriety, is at Han Collection until 11 May
- Young In Hong’s solo exhibition, Five Acts, is at Bristol’s Spike Island until 5 May
- Choi Jeong-hwa’s group show When Forms Come Alive is at the Hayward Gallery until 6 May
- The Delight media art experience is in Borough Market until 26 May
- The KCC’s new exhibition, 26, Your Korean Words, spotlights the words added to the OED a couple of years ago
Special events
- The University of Sheffield’s Korea Day is on 1 May
- BKS Diners meet on 16 May with a brief tour of New Malden before dinner
- The KCC hosts a Next-Gen Late Night on 31 May
Book talks and conferences
- Bruce Fulton talks about his Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories on 3 May at the KCC
- June Hur talks about A Crane Among Wolves on 15 May, also at the KCC
- Monica Macias talks about Black Girl from Pyongyang on 4 May in New Malden and 9 May in Ealing
- Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, talks at the Ra Jong-yil memorial lecture in Cambridge, 22 May
- Sheffield’s conference Digital Korea: Stories, systems and spaces of connection is on 30-31 May
Food
- It’s Korean food month at Westminster Kingsway College, with the Vincent Rooms featuring Korean food 7-10 May and Korean cookery workshops 4/11/18 May
Screenings
- The latest in the Ma Dong-seok Crime City franchise, The Roundup: Punishment, is in cinemas from May 3
- Shin Sang-ok’s The Flower in Hell gets a screening at the KCC on 13 May
Publications expected
- Mediating Gender in Post-Authoritarian South Korea, ed Jesook Song and Michelle Cho pub University of Michigan Press
- Past Progress: Time and Politics at the Borders of China, Russia, and Korea by Ed Pulford pub Stanford University Press
- If You Live To One Hundred, You Might As Well Be Happy: Lessons for a Long and Joyful Life by Rhee Kun Hoo tr Suphil Lee Park pub Rider
- Mirror Nation by Don Mee Choi pub Wave Books
- A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur pub Hachette
- The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by Cho Yeeun tr Jung Yewon pub Honford Star