Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Goryeong International Performance Art Festival

Goryeong International Performance Art Festival was held on August 12 & 13, 2006 at a disused elementary school in the small town of Goryeong, west of Daegu. In Korea many small country schools have closed due to the shrinking population and the trend towards urban living. The Korean government has allocated funds for the schools to be turned into community art centres or villages.


The festival included invited artists from four contries - Korea, Japan, Spain and Australia.The styles of performance were diverse. Some of the other artists are shown below:
Yasuo Fukurozaka, Japan
Shim, Hongjae, Korea
Yun, Myeong guk, Korea
Valentin Torrens, Spain


My performance was called "The Elements",
referring to fire, water, earth and air.

I commenced by laying out sheets of calligraphy paper
on the grass beneath an old pine tree.
I then performed actions to connect with the elements -
filling a bowl with water and aerated it with my breath,
digging the earth, and lighting a candle.







I painted designs on the paper with the water

relating to the 4 elements.

I set fire to the paper which burned away ,

leaving only the wet elemental designs on the grass.

Finally, I blew out the candle

and poured the water over my body.



Below is a video of my performance "The Elements":

1 comment:

Becky Perry said...

In the wake of North Korea's first successful nuclear test, The Washington Post's PostGlobal and Oxford International Review are sponsoring exclusive blog responses to a question posed by former South Korean President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kim Dae-Jung:
Why do you think the current US Administration has refused direct negotiations with North Korea, despite North Korea's proposal to do so?

OIR posed this question to a panel of students from the United States and Asia gathered at Hong Kong University to participate in the Asia Institute for Political Economy, a program conducted by The Fund for American Studies. Click here to read their commentary, in light of recent events: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/debate/korea/

Because of your interest in the region, you are being invited to join the conversation and pose questions to our panel. OIR and PostGlobal would love your input.
http://www.oir.org.uk
blog.washingtonpost.com/postglobal