Bodily Movement in La Divina Commedia by Han, Tae-suk

 
By Hamsta

***Note: this article contains spoilers for Snowpiercer (2013), directed by Bong, Joon-ho

I suppose it cannot but be a challenging work to make a well-known literature into a theatre performance, as one very crucial question may quickly arise; Why should it be staged when it seems just as good enough to be read?* To this question, Edward Gordon Craig would have answered; No, you shouldn't. This modernist theatre-maker thought that Shakespeare’s great plays shouldn't be staged at all. Besides the discrepancy between the staged Hamlet and the imagined Hamlet, what he indeed meant by negating the idea of ‘staging’ is that theatre is not merely the staged text but the reality on its own.

It seems for Han, Tae-suk, her answer in La Divina Commedia is that she tries to go beyond the ‘mere staging’ of this Western classic by means of theatrical devices such as scenography, musicalisation and bodily movement: The huge structure on stage which fully occupies one of the biggest stages in Seoul (it can even revolve!), alternating dialogues and songs with live orchestral music accompanied all the way, and abundant display of bodily dynamics. It will be great if I can deal with each of those, but to my painful realisation, I am not such a capable writer. So I would rather, in this essay, focus my discussion to the bodily aspect, which mostly appealed to my interest.

*No, please don’t tell me you want it to be staged because you gave up teenage-reading and never tried picking it up again from the bookshelf!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-fLnBfmDaQ

Sfumato: Blurring of Borders

by Hakyung Sim

          The month of October was full of treats for theatergoers in Seoul. Along with the usual domestic performances, works of foreign directors and companies were brought to local stages by festivals such as SPAF (Seoul Performing Arts Festival) and SIDance (Seoul International Dance Festival). Though I’m not dance-savvy at all, the array of Western contemporary dance performances interested me.

          Above all, Sfumato, a work presented at SPAF by French choreographer Rachid Ouramdane and his company L’A, appealed with its slogan: “a sociopolitical dance-documentary about climate refugees”. It was introduced that Ouramdane's trip to Vietnam, where he witnessed refugees from a tornado, had inspired him. Sure, the widely anticipated use of water on stage was another appealing point. Seeing several productions recently with water on stage, however, had made “water” less sensational for me; I rather focused on how it was used, or what effects it gave on the overall experience.