Myung Soo Kim

Arirang: Ritual Korean Solos
Myung Soo Kim
The Duke on 42nd Street
June 18, 2006

by Susan Reiter
copyright ©2006, Susan Reiter

The intense concentration and deliberateness of Myung Soo Kim’s program of seven ritual solos made for a mesmerizing two hours. As she offered up these extremely detailed, delicate dances, whose origins are shamanistic, one could appreciate that their meanings were as layered as the elaborate costumes she calmly, methodically put on and removed in a small upstage alcove in between the pieces. So much history and significance lies behind these dances, and Kim’s thorough program notes offered some guidance to those of us bringing a glaring lack of knowledge and perspective about Korean culture. All one could do was absorb the focused, often somber approach she brought to them, while realizing that what lies behind, and motivates, every measured step and fluttered sleeve, adds an import to these performances that is cannot be fully appreciated by many of us.

The presentation of the program was carefully thought out and elegant in its simplicity. A print of a very large 1745 Buddhist painting, depicting multiple Buddhas, hung at center stage. Sounds of rain and faint chimes were heard before Kim made her entrance, with the houselights still up, along the front of the stage. Wearing an elaborate, but not heavy, costume of robe with layers and strips of rich royal blue, yellow, red and white she donned a triangular paper hat that hid much of her face, and brandished two paper flowers, that would have seemed gaudy if not for the seriousness of purpose with which she held them.

Her small feet were encased in what seemed to be tight, stretchy white socks, eliminating all sense of individual toes. They made her feet appear flat, rather blunt, yet she maneuvered them with exceptional delicacy and specificity. Throughout the many, extensive costume changes, these foot coverings remained a constant. Her legs themselves, while providing steady, unhurried momentum, were something you sensed by implication, since the layered of softly draped fabric, and the restrained movement never revealed them.

Crouching, advancing with small steps, rising and sinking very subtly, Kim imbued the minimal movements with a sense of the sacred, establishing the ritual nature of the space and of her purpose within it. She then retreated upstage, where drawn black curtains closed over the painting and then parted to reveal a tiny “room,” the area where she went through her costume changes.

As the program continued, it developed a pleasant, somewhat soothing rhythm, where these interludes – as she sat or crouched in profile, removing layers to reveal a simple white shift before adding on new layers of skirts, robes, tops and sashes, plus the appropriate hat (adorned with peacock feathers) or headpiece. During these leisurely sequences, we heard recordings of various versions of Arirang, which a program note defines as “a peasant song that comes from difficult experiences of living,” dating back most than three centuries. Aside from one brief one that Kim herself sang, very softly, these featured lilting, plaintive melody that became recognizable, through these versions ranging from 1914 to 1991 put it through many permutations. Each costume change had its assigned music (anywhere from one to four brief pieces), after which a hypnotic recording of water being poured, with intermittent bird calls, would take over until she rose and came forward for her next solo.

Almost grim in her presentation, Kim seethed with muted power. Some solos were exotic in their strangeness, as when she shook a stick with jingling beads and brandished a fan as she pivoted slowly in place, gradually accelerating her pace. What, we could only wonder, was she trying to ward off so intently?

Long, overextended sleeves were an important part of several of the costumes. These were either manipulated deftly, flowing into their own dance, or trailed beside her. One very long white scarf that Kim held during the sorrowful “Tosalp’uri” symbolized the soul of the dead. As she danced to drive away evil spirits, Kim alternately hovered in a squat and bent slowly forward. The slightly cacophonous music had an odd, wailing dissonance, with a flute asserting itself within the ongoing pulsating sounds.

One sensed the terrible significance of the angles she demarcated with her forceful arms in “Kommu,” in which yellow sleeves poked out from under a black robe with gold trim. She placed two red-fringed swords on the ground in an X pattern, then bounced in place and kneeled on that spot. The ferocity of her drumming, on a large, gaudily painted drum placed horizontally on an elaborate stand, was startling at the culmination of “Sungmu,” a confrontation with worldly temptations, which the drum represented. Until she faced it head-on, she had waved her long, full sleeves with fierce intent and great deliberateness, swaying and turning, fear mingling with resoluteness.

Each solo came to a quiet, almost surprising end, without any theatrical flourish. Kim completed each one, and moved onto the next task. For these two hours, what she was doing had such gravity of purpose and internal motivation that we outsiders could only absorb the power of her focused energies and appreciate, from a position of limited perspective, the opportunity to experience dancing with such ancient roots and singular motivation.

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Myung Soo Kim