The Musical Hero

The show begins with a thud as the actors introduce their motive in the form of a repetitive melodious singing. The flag of preindependent Korea is seen waving in the background as the actors line up and dissolve in front of the audience with the musical cues.
As the show progresses, we become familiar with 안중근, our hero, and his dream of freeing Korea from Japanese imperialism. With the music coming to an end and with that so does their singing, we are surprised by a scene of the actors cutting off their ring fingers as a pledge towards attaining the dream.
The show is full of emotional variants, light moments of joy with the street food seller and heavy sad moments at the end of the performance as the protagonist is executed by the Japanese army. Another unique characteristic is the use of multiple actors for the same role. This was necessary to maintain a fluid and sound progression of the show, albeit of any mishap or random events that may occur. The stage lighting, audio quality and visual effects were at par with some of the world's best musicals. The scene of the running train was especially a very well executed one.
Right after the intermission, the performance takes a completely different turn. From the light singing and merry love making in the beginning, we see an inclination towards seriousness and maturity towards achieving the goal. Our hero, 안중근, is shown smuggling in a weapon during the king's parade and subsequently assassins the Japanese emperor. A bewildered audience surrounded me at this instant while I tried to make heads with the issue. Our hero is captured and taken over by the Japanese army who then execute him by hanging him. This was the end of the performance, a start of an era for the Korean independence fighters and the time for me to satisfy my hungry stomach. The show lasted for 3 hours with an intermission of 20 minutes.

Lionboy @ Seoul National Theatre

IT IS RARE that you see the finest of acting equipped with equally fine art and technology as in the LIONBOY. Adapted from a children's book about a boy who speaks cats and is on a mission to rescue his kidnapped parents, the play is a pure eye-candy with vivid screenplays and choreography. The play starts on a decent note of the characters introducing themselves and then move slowly towards revealing the plot. Charlie Ashanti, a boy of mixed race, is our hero. As we move through the plot, we realize that Charlie's greatest struggle is not just rescuing his kidnapped parents, but also to end the evil reign of the Corporacy. Towards the end of the play, we find Charlie reuniting with his parents with the Corporacy setting down in the background.

The Museum of Decorative Arts Paris.

Welcome to the 18th century France, the powerhouse of fashion in all of Europe and a sight to behold in all sense of beauty and human achievements. Just as we enter, on our right is a group of 3 young women playing some folk tones on their musical instruments while on our left is a lovely french couple passing their day in the ignorance of the crowd around them. As we walk further, we see a lovely sphinx statue built of clay and sand and polished to such extremity that it shines away at the very camera that is trying to capture it's existence. That is the starting point of our journey because from there onward, we enter into a world of an 18th century french aristocrat whose lavishness in next only to the Greek king Midas. First we go through a living room, fully lighted and well equipped with the potential of scorching any observer with irony and guilt of self absorption. Down the hallway we see certain other rooms- a bedroom, a study-room, a changing room, etc. which are all lit up in the ignorance of the sufferings outside the 4 walls of the palace. Maybe the sufferings of that time were so great that they had to be shelled off through these elaborate building and structures as we see in the museum, or maybe the aristocrats were a bunch of non emphatic pigs whose sole aim in life was self absorption. Needless to say, no matter what their acts were motivated by, they changed the very face of France in the 18th century and helped steer the nation forward.

Opera @ Coex Mall (Orfeo ed Euridice , 2013)

In this striking assembly of music and acting, the Orfeo ed Euridice takes its audience through a spectrum of emotions ranging from sadness to guilt to ego and joy. The opera begins with the prince realizing that his beloved wife is dead and he is very sad about it. In the following parts, we find out that the prince strives to bring his lovely wife back from the underground. On his way to meet his wife in the underground, he is surrounded by an army of demons whom he has to satisfy as in order to let him pass and meet his wife. There, in the underground, the prince learns that the cause of his wife's death was not any disease but his own negligence towards her and how his love for his harp competed with her love for him. As they get united in the underground, the prince and the princess begin a journey to return back. This journey, however, is completed only by the prince as his lover falls unconscious in the underground.

In the end, we see the prince walking away through a dark corridor signifying that he has learned to live alone without his harp or his beloved wife. 

Korean Symphony @ Seoul Art Center

 Music is what light is for the eyes, for not only does it encapsulate the world in itself but also shows a path to the desperate and the desolate. And so I ended up at the 30th anniversary of the Seoul Art Center near Nambu terminal finding my way midst skilled violinists and their evermore skilled conductor.

The show was a 90 minute long performance featuring two great pieces of western classical work. With the infrastructure that only Beethoven and Mozart could imagine in their dreams, the concert hall was full of acoustic effects and beautiful designs.

Although the concert was a wee bit expensive, it was worth going there.

Gansong exhibition

 It is rare that you see such beautiful arts depicting history and culture of a country in such a small and confined location as the Gansong exhibition. 

While walking around witnessing the prowess and dexterity of ancient Korean painters, it struck me hard about the human's need for potency, and how humans would take long and tiring efforts to record and propagate  their views of the world. 

The Korean style of art, highly influenced by the Chinese and the Japanese, is  a highly precise and detailed kind of art that allows the artist to put in as many details into a small piece as possible. Tiny scribbles resembling humans and animals are highly common in such paintings, often centered towards the center of the frame. The beauty of this kind of art resides in its ability to hide the obvious and make the observer go around the room figuring out the hidden characteristics of a piece of art. 

Media Facade at Shinsegae (Myeongdong)

Christmas is around and the air is filled with delights again. On Friday, 14th November, I went to Myeongdong to participate in the Shinsegae Media facade. It was a show of light and pictures, decorating the outer walls of Shinsegae mall with 3D holographic images. The show lasted for 4 minutes, and repeated every 6 minutes, making each show start at approximately 10 minutes after the previous one. 

Around the walls of Shinsegae was an adored monument showered with tiny sparkles of yellow lights. A former fountain but now a eye mesmerizing monument, the fountain was a major attraction to the event. I wished to take a photo along with the fountain but the sheer intensity of light made my face go black and hence no photography was feasible. 

AN ADVICE: If you go visit the place, bring along a camera with a good night light photography. It is worth it!