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Infinite imagination
Packed with the joyful moments of creation!
Trial Children and Youth Content Production on Asia Story

We always see the world full of “completed” things—A table full of dishes, fully grown trees, eye-catching fashion stars. Completed things are beautiful, marvelous, and fixed. The result of beauty charms us. But can beauty and touching emotions only be found in the “outcome?” Here, we present clumsy yet endearing “processes:” Cleaning, boiling, and tasting ingredients for a perfect meal; Countless springs, summers, autumns, and winters that a tall tree had to endure. Many trials and honesty in the time spent to grow, these “processes” make solid and beautiful “outcomes.” The same goes for artworks and performances. Staging one performance requires countless attempts to build the blocks up, tear them down, and build them again. It’s a strenuous yet valuable process. Perhaps it’s the process of preparation in which artists find the most difficult and draining yet enjoy the pure joy of “creation” itself. Therefore, maybe this “Trial Children and Youth Content Production” is a picture diary that shows the full extension of the “joy in the process.”

2021
[Trial Children and Youth Content Production on Asia Story]

A friendship of a goblin that wants to make friends with humans
「There Comes the Goblin」
A desperate and beautiful tale of the struggle of captured children
「The Children on the Road」
Hey! The real issue here is the toilet!
「Burying the Moon」

On November 10 and 14, PlayHouse and Atelier 1 of ACC Theater hosted exciting performances. In this 4th year of the ACC Children and Youth Content Production Project, three performances have been chosen to be staged since this spring. Now the product is ready to showcase the trial performances. The works that will be staged are 「There Comes the Goblin」, 「The Children on the Road」, and 「Burying the Moon」. All works are based on Asian stories.

「There Comes the Goblin」 by the production company {Book of Mysterious Movements} is a convergence of children’s play with digital paintings and physical movements. Based on the children’s book The Crying Red Goblin by Hamada Hirosuke, a Japanese author, tells a story of true friendship through Oni, a goblin that wants to become a friend with humans.

On November 14, 「The Children on the Road」 by creative production {Olive and Jjinkong} was staged in Atelier 1. The basis of the narrative comes from the true story of Seongam Academy (located in Seongamdo Island in Ansan-si, Gyeonggi-do) where kidnapped children on the street were imprisoned because of the government policy to eradicate juvenile vagrants after May. 16 Coup in 1962. The desperate yet beautiful movements of children who struggled to survive and breathe in the violent oppression became a grotesque and comedic story.

Now, let’s review 「Burying the Moon」 that I have seen in person

Want to bury the moon, or make “that?”
The struggle of Latika, an Indian girl,
On the field of shame!
Performance of women’s solidarity and bravery
「Burying the Moon」

Poop, fart, and pee—these are the three heroes of children’s stories. Children are bound to be interested. To be honest, it’s a bit “ugh,” to adults, but there isn’t a more loved topic by children. Emptying and filling the human body are survival instincts for humans and essential elements for daily lives. Poop, fart, and pee are necessary elements to empty your body. Burying the Moon presents these three toilet humor in the center of the narrative. ‘Wow! Then it should be all laugh and no tears.’ But that’s only half right. It’s funny, makes you angry and upset, and leaves you with a bit of tear in the end. That’s Burying the Moon.

The story is set in a small village in India. In the dead of a night, village women gather around and go out in the field. They are headed to the “Field of Shame,” the communal toilet for women. But when the moon is high in the sky, it’s too bright to secretly do your business. Latika, a daring and cheerful 12-year-old girl wants to bury the moon. Or, she wants “that!” She wants to make a “toilet.” Latika raises a pickax in the Field of Shame! Can she bury the moon? Or make a toilet? Burying the Moon is not a daring episode of a girl but a long chronicle of women’s pain caused by the lack of toilets. Grandma got stung by a scorpion while relieving herself in the Field of Shame and aunt lost a child from water contaminated by feces and urine. And Latika’s cousin who started her menstruation is forced to stop her studies because there is no toilet in her school. All these tragedies are born from the lack of a toilet. The bright moon that Latika tries to bury in the ground perhaps symbolizes the violence and forced silence of male-dominant society on women.
The story is touching, but the narrative is not gloomy. Four actors never stop singing and dancing on the stage. The Indian dances and rhythms are not over-the-top but lighten up the story that could be grave. It's a short trial performance that goes for 30 minutes, but it’s enough to understand the entire story. These four actors put so much of their hearts into this short 30 minutes and touch the audiences’ hearts. It makes me very excited for the main performance of 「Burying the Moon」.


If the outcome is a fruit, then the process could be the blossoms. If the outcome is beautiful for its strength and sturdiness to endure raging waves, then perhaps blossoms are beautiful for their fragility. I believe that their fragile and soft nature opens doors for even more opportunities to grow larger and stronger. I hope all three ripening performances of the [Trial Children and Youth Content Production on Asia Story] to be so.

• Written by Choi Min-yim (samagg@hanmail.net)
  Photography by ACC
  
  2021.12