Prelude 09: Artists

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SPOTLIGHT: KOREA

featuring workshops, readings, screenings + panel discussion with Korean theatre makers.

Saturday, October 3
10am - 4pm | Elebash Hall + Various

PRELUDE 09 continues to look beyond New York with its international SPOTLIGHT series. SPOTLIGHT: KOREA will showcase the work of contemporary Korean theater artists, in collaboration with New York directors. Prelude welcomes Seoul-based company Wuturi Players and Marion Schoevaert, and will present excerpts of HongDonggi by playwright Kim Kwang Lim (dir. Steven Rattazzi), The Material Man by celebrated Korean poet Hwang Ji Woo (dir. Allison Troupe-Jensen), and The Birthday Party by Kim Myung Hwa (dir. Esther Chae). Plus, a special Workshop on Korean Mask and Dance Theatre.

The Wuturi Players style stretches between the boundaries of Western drama and Korean traditions. Wuturi creates a ‘new modern tradition’, building an identity of its own. Actors experiment and train with texts to reconnect with the originality of intonations and rhythms of the Korean language. All texts are put into a musical score. The text, the music and the movements are in accord as one by the drum beat. Wuturi’s theater is based on the sweat of actors in movement, dancing and singing. Actors are intensively trained in traditional and mask dance, puppet shows, modern movements and the martial arts. Wuturi is now experimenting and extending its style on foreign plays whose stories are meaningful to Korean audience today. Company Website

Marion Schoevaert bio coming soon!

Kim Kwang Lim has written and directed in national theaters. His work includes Why the Heavenly Woman; Hongdonggi; Play; Come on Mutu; Wuturi Baby Giant; I Became Chuan-tzu in Dream; The Last Empress (Lincoln Center, London, Los Angeles); That Star is in Danger; The House; and many more. He holds an MA in Theater from UCLA and a BA in French Literature from Seoul National University. His plays are published in Korea by Pyeng MinSa and Theatres Coreens in Paris. His works are translated into French and English. He received the Baksang Arts Award for Best Play in 1996 and Best Director & Grand Prize in 1993. He was also Artist of the Year from the Korean Arts Critics Association in 1996 and Dong-A Theater Award for Best Director in 1989. He is currently a Professor at School of Drama, Korea National University of since 1994, and the Artistic Director of Wuturi Players.

Hwang Ji Woo was born in 1952, during the Korean War, in the southern port town of Haenam. He studied aesthetics and philosophy at college in the early 1970s, during which he was arrested and tortured for his anti-government activities, He began publishing his poems in 1980 and has since written 7 books of poetry including Even Bird Leave the World (1983), From a Winter Tree to a Spring Tree (1985), and I’ll Sit in a Cloudy Tavern Some day (1990). For his work, Hwang has received many of Korea’s most prestigious literary awards, among them the Sooyoung Kim Literary Award, the Hyundae Literary Award, the Sowol Poetry Award, and the Daesan Literay Award. He taught Drama at the Korean Academy of theater, and was the president of Korean National University of Art.

Kim Myung Hwa bio coming soon!

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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

WUTURI KOREAN THEATRE WORKSHOP

10am-1pm, C-Level, The Graduate Center

American students and professional dancers and actors can experience and watch the great physical and rhythmical vocabulary of the Wuturi company and Korean traditional theater and dance.

Featuring:
Park JunMi, Wuturi Choreographer

Byun Jung Joo, Wuturi Drummer (Korean rhythm based on English text)

Goggi Hyuk, Wuturi Dance and Mask Artist

Bring comfortable clothing for movement. Reservations, e-mail: allison@preludenyc.org

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SPOTLIGHT: KOREA

2pm - 4pm, Elebash Hall