By Kim Eun-young, Kim Hyelin and Kim Young Shin
Photos = Sejong Center for the Performing Arts
Seoul | Nov. 2, 2018

As a traditional singer approaches and whispers to four dancers standing on the stage, with their limbs hanging down, they start moaning with their bodies jerking. Covered in sweat, they wave their arms in a triangle and repeatedly jump up high at a fast pace. Moving as if possessed, the dancers shout at the audience.

The creepy and unfamiliar motions staged by the dancers for an hour are a re-creation of a scene found in Korea. The movements are borrowed from Korea’s shamanistic ritual, gut (굿).

"Nativos" is a modern-dance adaptation of a gut, a shamanistic ritual in which the mudang (무당), the shaman, makes an offering to the spirits and sing and dance to ask for good fortune.

The performance was presented on Nov. 2 and 3 at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul.

It was co-produced by the Korea National Contemporary Dance Company and Belgium’s Theatre de Liege, with choreography by Ayelen Parolin, a prominent choreographer from Argentina.

Traditional Korean percussion instruments such as the janggu (장구), an hourglass drum, and jing (징), a large gong, together with a piano play the background music for the dance.

Parolin said that she recognizes repeated daily routine as a type of ritual. “In order to understand the present, we need to track down the past, the tradition,” said the choreographer. “I used gut as a medium for returning to the past.”

“The movement, music and language of the gut conveys raw energy,” she continued. “It coincides with my attempts to go beyond normality.”

“I am looking for sympathy and interaction,” said Parolin who said that the work should be interpreted by the audience.

“Nativos” was first performed in Seoul in 2016 and staged in France, Belgium and Italy. It was also awarded “Prix de la Critique 2017,” the prize given by Belgian critics.



eykim86@korea.kr