After witnessing so many astounding gigs at Club Inegales, where musicians from different cultures come together to create new and unrepeatable sounds, it really should not surprise me when a collaboration that looks slightly weird on paper is actually a stunning success when it happens. Collaboration, between Korean and British-based musicians, is one of the … [Read More]
LKL articles by Philip Gowman (page 40)
London Korean Film Festival 2017: full programme details
Details of the programme for the 2017 London Korean Film Festival were announced earlier this evening at the fun-packed and blood-spattered final teaser screening (Jung Byung-gil’s The Villainess). The detailed schedule is right at the bottom of this page, and the below press release gives us plenty to mull over in terms of the individual … [Read More]
LoKo’s 6th Anniversary – the vlog
Congratulations to the London KPop Dance Workshop on their 6th birthday. They started Sept 5th 2011, hosting monthly workshops. Here’s the vlog of their most recent session. Links: LoKo YouTube Channel | Facebook page | on Twitter [Read More]
A good list of restaurants in Seoul
It’s so rare to find a list of recommended restaurants in Seoul that focuses on Korean food as opposed to French and other cuisine, and which includes honest, salt-of-the-earth type places as well as the fancy ones with Michelin stars. So I don’t want to lose this particular link, which includes two very humble places … [Read More]
September events 2017
As summer comes to an end, it’s time for the K-Music festival, which has some really good things this year. But there’s plenty else going on too. Note also the list includes events in Bristol, Wigan, Farnham and Hull. Exhibitions In Kingston Museum, two exhibitions are on show throughout the month: Through Their Eyes, depicting … [Read More]
Fringe Review: After 4 – Over the Moon
Sometimes, no matter how much I might be bowled over by a performance, I cannot put into words what I found so stunning about it. So it is with Yoo Sun-hoo’s work After 4: Over the Moon. Part of the magic of the piece is the peaceful, poignant music that provides the accompaniment, performed live … [Read More]
Fringe review: Monkey Dance
This is a fun musical in which eight incredibly energetic and athletic performers leap around on stage to the musical accompaniment of a quintet of vocalists, beat-boxer and bass. There’s a loose story-line (not that it matters too much as the emphasis is on the music and action) in which an explorer comes to the … [Read More]
Brief Fringe review: Behind the Mirror
The Fringe version of Behind the Mirror, at 1 hour, is half an hour shorter than the full version that has successfully been performed in Korea for many years. In the version presented at the Fringe, the tale of Princess Pyonggang and General Ondal is told very briefly before a parallel story is told in … [Read More]
Film review: A Taxi Driver
I went along to watch A Taxi Driver out of a sense of duty. What can be said about Gwangju, I thought, that hasn’t been said already? I’d rather see a documentary. Plus, Korean movies with foreign actors always raise slight alarm bells with me (Isabelle Huppert in Hong Sang-soo’s In Another Country left me … [Read More]
Brief Fringe review: Mind Goblin
Mind Goblin is a mysterious half-hour solo accompanied by a quiet, watery soundtrack. Sometimes serene, sometimes descending into madness, the solitary dancer / choreographer Lee Kyung-eun manages to retain our attention throughout the piece despite the lack of obvious rhythm to the music. The most striking moment comes when the soloist coughs up black liquid … [Read More]
Fringe review: Ensemble SU — The Party
Ensemble SU is a five-piece fusion group formed in 2010 and led by Jihye “JJ” Hur on 25-string gayageum with Yein Kim on haegeum, Myunghyun Park on cello, Sangjung Lee on keyboard and Deokhwan Kim playing Korean and western percussion (and not to be confused with a similarly named jazz / gugak fusion trio based … [Read More]
Fringe review: Kokdu – The Soul Mate
Intended to be a simple morality tale about respect for the dead and dying, as well as an exposition of Korean folk and shamanistic beliefs about burial customs and the afterlife, this ambitious production combines strong visuals and colourful costumes with storytelling that is an uncomfortable mixture of seriousness and slapstick. Sometimes it’s good to … [Read More]
Film review: The Battleship Island
Synopsis Some nasty Japanese are being beastly to the Korean forced labourers in an offshore Japanese coal mine as the Second World War comes to a close. And one or two Koreans aren’t exactly being that patriotic either. In the middle of it all is a weak, venal Korean who is among the labourers with … [Read More]
Ambassador Cho posted to Washington
Cho Yoon-je, who was Seoul’s ambassador to London when LKL came online in 2006, has been posted to Washington. After leaving London, Ambassador Cho took up an academic post at Sogang University. Meanwhile, Victor Cha, author of among other things The Impossible State fills the post of US ambassador to Seoul. Source: Korea JoongAng Daily [Read More]
Gossip and impressions from the Fringe
Before I get down to the serious business of writing up a few reviews of the shows I got to see, here is a round-up of random thoughts and gossip The performers’ work is never done… It’s never really dawned on me before how hard the performance teams work when they are in Edinburgh. Their … [Read More]
The boring stuff I’ve been working on during August
It’s August. The office isn’t as busy as usual. My brain isn’t being used as much as it normally is, and it needs to find an outlet. So it’s the month when, if there are things that need doing to the design or coding of the website, I turn my mind to it. The last … [Read More]