일시: 2009년 12월 6일- 장소: 메릴랜드주립대학 Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
‘8백여 관객 환호 퓨전 사물놀이 ‘워싱턴 뒤흔들다’
한국의 예산족이 워싱턴 지역땅을 뒤흔들었다.
몰개와 미연과 박, 그리고 판소리 대가 서명희씨은 한국의 전통 사물놀이에 피아노와 드럼 서양 타악기를 혼수, 세계로 뻗어가는 한국의 장단을 유감없이 발휘했다.
이번 행사에 참가할 것으로 알려져 화제가 됐던 미 최초의 여성 4성장군 앤 던우디 대장은 공연이 긑난 후 “매우 인상적인 연주였다 “고격찬했다, 여러차례 한국을 방문한 적도 있고 공연에도 가봤었지만 이 정도의 수준높은, 재능 있는 연주를 본 것은 처음인 것 같다”고 한마디로 ‘원더플’한이벤트였다고 말했다.또한 60여명의 한국 입양아가족과 미국 재향군인, 교육자등 대거 초청 됐다.
Forget Paris. Forget New York. Artistic creativity has migrated again, and now its home is Seoul. And with a difference: whereas western creative evolution has usually represented a break with past forms, the evolution in Korea exemplifies synthesis, fusing contemporary with traditional, honoring shared norms by intensifying their relativity to modern ambiance. What little heritage westerners have, they bury with nouveau. Hence, in western dance Diaghilev and Balanchine departed dramatically from classical ballet, only to be one-upped by the likes of Martha Graham, Bob Fosse and Alvin Ailey; and in musical composition it was “variations on a theme” – Brahms on Handel and Haydn, Rachmaninoff on Corelli and Chopin, Hindemith on von Weber, Britten on Bridge – creations unmistakably in the style of the composer who lifts only a melody from a predecessor. The nearest occidental approximations to contemporary Korean fusion might be something like Keith Jarrett’s brief flirtation with jazz/classical crossover, or the numerous reinterpretations of a classic like Romeo and Juliet – for example, West Side Story.
Korean fusion, to date at least, is like an extended family reunion, an homage to ancestral roots – more augmentation than reinterpretation. It connects present with past, rather than simply replacing the past. We have witnessed this synthesis for a full generation. The year 2000 brought forth Seon-Hee Jang’s Ballet Shin Si 21, a contemporary interpretation of the Dangan Legend from the Samguk Yusa of the Shilla period. In September 2007 we were treated to a remarkable contemporary rendition of the ancient shaman ritual Sal Puri Choom by dance master Lim Jin Yu, reviewed in this space in KM volume 2, issue 38. (A somewhat dissimilar update of Sal Puri Choom was choreographed by Sen Hea Ha for the 1999 Indonesian Dance Festival, a version she continues to perform internationally with her group Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia. And, an earlier version yet was choreographed by Mae Bang Yi for the 1997 U.C.L.A. Asia Pacific Performance Exchange.) In August of this year, a Korean Traditional Festival at Northern Virginia Community College fused sangmo pan-gut with break-dancing, all the more remarkable for having been adopted in Korea and presented meticulously by Korean young men who had mastered the athletic prowess of American inner-city youth.
But however dazzling all these presentations, they were merely bouche-amuse for the astonishing performance of Korea Art & Soul, on December 6 at the University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Arts Center. This show began sedately enough, with a display of Korean royal costumes of the Chosun Dynasty, the final imperial reign of Korean history (1392 – 1910). That was followed with the almost obligatory sangmo pan-gut. Then the stage went dark long enough for a grand piano to be wheeled into place, next to gear for the changgo drummers.
Wait – piano with changgo? YES! – and it proved to be a stroke of genius, a stunning musical innovation on the part of husband-wife duo Je Chun Park and Mi Yeon Park. Miyeon (“my stage name”, she says), played the entire sequence of changgo and pansori on that piano for the remainder of the evening – in addition to having composed and arranged the whole lot. The piano is, of course, simultaneously a string instrument and a percussion instrument. Miyeon, a classically trained pianist, established complete mastery of both its string and percussive qualities. During a call-response routine with the samulnori players, for example, she matched their crescendo with similar dynamic rapid-fire strikes of a single chord; then switched to multiple chords and jazz rifs that challenged them to percussive duel; and then switched to melodic accompaniment for the pansori presentation, festooned with a few cadenzas reminiscent of – you won’t believe this – Liszt. Nothing I can recall in western music adequately describes her performance, other than perhaps George Antheil’s ecstatically noisy Dada composition Ballet Méchanique – but that is arranged for twelve synchronized pianos that require automation to execute properly, whereas Miyeon does it all on only one.
Meanwhile, her husband Jechun Park controlled several percussion instruments including a pungmul-buk, sogeum, and an assortment of western jazz drum components. He played them in free improvisation, alternating between traditional and jazz rhythms. His jazz rifs sounded hauntingly similar to the renown Bernard Purdie shuffle, often called “the father of all shuffle”, that several American jazz bands have emulated.
The Miyeon and Jechun Park duo have long performed both free-form and structured improvisation based on jazz, contemporary classical composition and Korean traditional music. Since 1996 they have teamed with virtuoso artists worldwide in building their highly unique fusion style. Their first album, Queen and King, was released in 2005. Their second album, Dreams from the Ancestor (2008), won the Sixth Korean Music Festival “best instrumental” award and “best crossover” award. Separately the Parks have recorded solo albums as well.
Their colleagues in the University of Maryland concert were the samulnori percussion group Molgae, and master pansori singer Myung Hee Suh. Molgae also have a long list of worldwide credits including tours through Latin America, Africa, Near East, Japan and China; as well as numerous workshops and lectures, awards and festival appearances. They too have been exploring links between Korean traditional music and contemporary foreign music gendres such as jazz, classical and flamenco. Myung Hee Suh lectures on Korean traditional song in various venues including Sun Moon University and Seoul Christian University, is expert in dance and gayageum as well as song, and has performed widely throughout the far eastern region. She attained Myungchang (master singer) status upon winning the Presidential Award at the Dongjin Park Memorial competition in 2008.
The program for this University of Maryland concert listed eight separate works following the sangmo pan-gut. In performance, however, the music never paused; it was all one sequence, focusing alternately on Molgae for Yoengnamkil- Kunak, then on Miyeon for a plaintive lyrical “And Let it Be”, then back to Molgae for variations on Gutguri composed by its drummer Young Kwang Lee, then to a complex fusion of jazz-based shaman rhythm, during which Myung Hee Suh entered center stage to deliver the customary Arirang and a “Dosal-Puri” pansori (based on Kyunggi-do shaman music, but reconstructed by Miyeon in western classical harmony). The concert closed with a strikingly acrobatic whitmori and pangut dance and a rousing Puhltael-Guhree jazz-samul improvisation based on whimori rhythmic patterns – part of Molgae’s “Korean Soul and Beat Project”.
This stellar performance was sponsored jointly by the non-profit Korean American Cultural Arts Foundation and the Korea Monitor. It represents an exciting new approach to Korean creativity and performance. Don’t miss the next one.
