Slow Dancing in Korea

I went mountain climbing...again. Really, that story is only interesting once, so I'll spare you the details (and just post a few more pics in a day or two). What was really interesting about this trip to the mountains is what happened when I came down.

I was given a flier for a traditional dance performance...and luckily it was only 10 minutes away.

The first set of dances were high school kids. They had long while flags attached to poles on their heads that they whipped around while they danced and played the drums. I have to say that I haven't seen nearly enough flag hat dancing in my life becaue it was really cool (I got a picture of it...I'll post it soon).

After the high school guys left, out came a Korean guy with long bleached hair...and, get this, a Hannibal Lector mask. I thought that was pretty creepy, but it got creepier. He started playing techno type music and out of the woods (where the performance was held) came a woman dressed all in white. She, like most of the Korean dancers, danced very very slowly. I seem to have come to the conclusion that Korean dancing is more about control than anything else.

At any rate, white slow dancer crept out of the woods slowly, danced slowly (hiding her face with a veil), and slowly dropped off her many layers of clothing on by one, until she had only about three times the normal amount of clothes on instead of ten. What made this extra creepy is that I never got a good look at her face. This coupled with the oppressively white garments gave me a feeling of watching a ghost dance. I was so taken in by the weirdness of the performance, however, that I forgot to take a picture.

The next two women to come out were much more traditional. My Korean teacher, whom I went mountain climbing with, told me these were harvest dances that they still often do out in the country to thank spirits for a bountiful harvest. Really, the dances were very similar to the ghost dance: lots of layers of clothing slowly dropped off and lots of slow movement. One big difference was that the women did not hide their faces. I did get pictures of these women. As you'll see, one was dressed mostly in white and the other was dressed in very colorful clothes.

The next dancer was a man, whom my teacher (Kim Myawng Hwee) told me was from Thailand. The dance he did was trying to immitate different birds. I didn't get that, and didn't learn that's what it was about until Mr. Kim translated the brochure thing for me afterward. It makes more sense now.

The man, surprisingly, crept out very slowly. He was wearing all black and long curled fingernails. He would dance slowly, then quickly, and then stop in a pose. He did this over and over for quite some time, then knelt to take off his fingernails. When he got back up, he flung open the black robe around his legs (now that I know he was trying to be a bird, this reminds me of wings) to reveal a colorful second robe underneath. He danced a little faster for the second part and did more poses...then just crept slowly out into the crowd and back into the woods. It was incredible (and I've got pics).

The last dance was the flag hat boys again. Their second dance was MUCH more complex. It involved a much faster drum beat, much more flag whipping, and some flipping (which playing the drums) that just blew me away. It was nuts how coordinated these kids were (one did, however, get his flag caught in a tree half way through and had to stop). I love it...although the dance was about 20 minutes and dragged a little at the end.

All this said, I've decided to quit being a teacher and buy myself a flag hat. I'm changing the name of my blog to "Korean Ryan's Adventures in Flag Hatting" and am going to begin getting my troupe together soon. Wish me luck!

Ryan