WEBZINE ACC

- Why should we talk about war in the new year?
A history of accidents and lunacy. A living landmine.

The Asia Culture Center (ACC) revealed AFTER WAR as its first performing arts program in 2022. So, they decided to talk about war as we celebrate the new year... What do they intend to discuss by bringing up that heavy subject so early on? Will they be able to look into the scars left by war? I can’t sleep. Fear kicks in like an instinct. The production is based on a novel about the Vietnam War (1955–1975). The Park Chung-hee regime volunteered to send Korean troops to Vietnam, in exchange for economic aid. In Vietnam, not a small number of atrocities were committed, including civilian killings and sexual violence. How do they intend to examine the history? I can only think of deeply heard breaking stories.

With a heavy heart, I searched for “countries with ongoing wars.” The results show the deep-rooted conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, the civil war in Myanmar, the rising tension between Ukraine and Russia, and North Korea’s middle-range missile launch over the East Sea. And... oh. I almost forgot. Korea is still under the armistice. The war wriggles under our feet, like a landmine beneath the surface.

- A story four years in making traverses
the East and the West
The Sorrow of War, Sorrow and Seeds, and now
AFTER WAR

Here is a story that was four years in making. The Sorrow of War was the winner of the Asia Literature Award at the second Asia Literature Festival in 2018. In this autobiographical novel, the author, Bảo Ninh, depicts the love, scars, and sorrow during wartime through the life of the protagonists Kien and Phuong.

In order to develop this novel into multiple contents created through the exchange, research, and collaboration of performing artists and creators in and outside of Korea, the ACC organized a production workshop in 2019 with NTL-OT[1] in Denmark and the Korea Association of Performing Arts Producers. Just like that, the dramatization of The Sorrow of War was under way.

In 2020, directors Elsebeth Marie Rahbek Banke and Lee Dong-il released a clip from the pilot program Sorrow and Seeds (NTL, Denmark) and The Sorrow of War (Theater Company Mindeulle, Korea), which they worked on going back and forth between Korea and Denmark. A single text was recreated into two programs with two different viewpoints and theatrical languages: Korean and Danish, and Eastern and Western.

In 2021, the work was finally completed to connect the two programs into a single program. The result was AFTER WAR. The four-year dialectical experiment between Korea and Denmark culminated in the creation of this theatrical production, which premiered at Theater 1, ACC Theater from January 27 to 30, 2022.

1. Cheoyong in Sorrow

I enter the theater. The seats are separated into two groups placed across the stage in the middle. Will I be witnessing a battlefield where people run from and to life and death? Two mudang (Korean equivalent of shaman) costumes are placed at either end of the stage. And I see a swing, hanging in the air. Musicians are placed on one end of the stage, and a screen of long white strips of cloth is on the other.

A round light shines in the middle of the stage. In the middle is a pile of black seeds forming a grave-like mound. Over the mound lies a bundle of cloth, like a corpse ready to be interred. The light dims, followed by a round of applause. And I see Cheoyong (處容) This mystical being, who wards off evil spirits and brings people back to life, moves around the grave. Then he caresses the body. That is right. He failed to save this person’s life. To Cheoyong, who is the very symbol of forgiveness, the war is a failure. The smile on the Cheoyong mask has never looked more morose. Thanks to the physical score of movements that are gentle yet disciplined like a dance, or a martial art, the colorful costumes, and the dreamy media art, the introduction left me with a strong yet beautiful impression.

Cheoyong took and moved seven bodies onto the stage and lay them in a row. A sentimental harmonica tune and a poem recital can be heard from behind the white screen next to the stage. Surprisingly, the actors are amateurs. A shaman and the seven actors (a Korean, playing the Young Man; and 6 Danes, playing the spirits of the dead) given tight hugs by those amateur actors enter the stage through the white screen. Then, a shout is heard. “Justice prevailed. Humanity prevailed. However, evil, death, and inhumanity also prevailed. You should believe in the goodness of humans.” The actors depict hugging and cleaning the bodies. Black seeds begin to fall from the bodies and the ceiling above the stage. Stop martial law! Take down the dictator! Ah, this is the Provincial Government Square during the May 18 Uprising... On the stage, Vietnam from the novel overlaps with the historical square in Gwangju. The shaman in white clothes and the seven actors remove the cloth wrapped around the bodies. Inside, we see clothed dolls filled with oats. The actors take the clothes off from the dolls and put the clothes on themselves. Now we return to the time of war.

2. Young Man Who Lost the Name
Pain dissipates, but sorrow never goes away.

The war puts the young man in a uniform and erases his name. He was once a child of revolution, a loved son, and a good friend. Now, someone dresses him up in a uniform and puts him on a battlefield. In war, you kill others to protect yourself. So, even those who never experienced a war know that it inflicts the worst pain to humans. We are the descendants of that unspeakable pain. Your heart beats, the sound of drums rattle your brain, and the flag is held straight. It is war!

It is unclear whether the unfolding time and space is from the young man’s memories, or his dream. A man hangs from the swing in the air. A man is dragged across the floor. A man tramples on the chest of another lying face down on the ground, which is reminiscent of the military boots in a certain photograph. A tango music is heard amid the chaos, and someone even dances. Someone sings holding a ukulele, and a woman gathers the bodies and tries to heal them. Even in a war, all of us do something.

The young man writhes on the stage, screaming “I was the enemy!” in a short, painful burst betraying his doubt about his own identity... People who bled during the Japanese invasion, the Korean War, and the democratic movements... If they were to come back today, would they smile a victorious smile? Wouldn’t they just stand there with sad, empty eyes? Who fought who? Pain dissipates, but sorrow never goes away. However, the shaman follows him who writhes in pain. The shaman’s Korean monologue is followed by the English monologues of the dead, like an echo. The actors speak in Korean, Spanish, English, Danish, French, and Slovakian. In these six languages, these people across different nationalities and races ask about the war.

3. Release the knots. Embrace each other.

Black sunflower seeds of 300 kg fall from the ceiling throughout the program. The seeds form patterns on the stage. Not to mention their visual effect, the sunflower seeds also served as a unique mechanism creating sound effects like rain at times, and noise at others. Is it an ironic way of saying that whatever contains life, also contains war? The hands that paint a picture of hell sow the sunflower seeds.

Ssitgimgut, a ritual that consoles the dead, consists of Ogupuri, Gopuri, Ssitgim, and Gildakkeum. “Go” (a strip of knotted cloth) in Gopuri symbolizes the sorrow of the dead. The actors, who put on the clothes from the dolls, take them off and put them back on the dolls. Then they wrap the bodies in clothes one by one. The actors lie next to the bodies, and now the dead and the living look at the world from the same level. The shaman passes through the middle, unfolding Go. Water flows where Go is laid. The water forms trees on the screens on either side. In the East, the tree is the Tree of Seonghwangdang (Shrine to Tutelary Deity). In the West, it is the Tree of Life. May these moves for the dead flow into life... The actors were hugged by the mother, played by an amateur actor, when they entered the stage. Now, the mother once again hugs the actors leaving the stage.

- The real protagonists

A theater stage is a place for actors. However, the story of today’s stage is not about the actors. It is about the life of the audience watching the show, or those who are not watching the show. This production seems to have protagonists that never make an appearance on the stage. Those who made people suffer during the war. Those who can bring about wars with the push of a button. I feel I must ask after these real, invisible protagonists. Where are they now?

The world is exposed to climate change, resource shortage, conflicts over energy, and excessive military powers. The COVID-19 pandemic is sometimes called the Vaccine War. The possibility of war lingers around us. The efforts to remember history are also the efforts to prevent us from repeating that history. That is why, even after the war, we must continue to look the sorrow of war in the eye. We need to stay inside the sorrow for a long time, without ever averting our eyes or talking about rushed hope. That is why we at the ACC talk about war after war.

1) NTL-OT, or Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium-Odin Teatret, was formed by Eugenio Barba, one of the three masters in the contemporary theater scene and the creator of theater anthropology.
2) Physical score: A physical score is about drawing up an overall sketch of a role by checking the actor’s spontaneous movements and turning them into symbols similar to those from a musical score. It is a unique training technique practiced at NTL-OT.

• Written by Park Na-na tonana@hanmail.net
  Photography courtesy of ACC
  
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