Download BLOG | Dutch Performing Arts in South Korea Teletubbie Oneness

BLOG | Dutch Performing Arts in South Korea
Teletubbie Oneness
There is something schizophrenic about being in South-Korea. It appears to be self-evident
to be in Gwangju, a huge city on the other side of the world. All it takes is to get on a plane
and you’re there. This matter of luxury of our times almost makes you forget the other side of
the cultural schizophrenia: all of a sudden you find yourself in a world that is completely
different from the one we, as Western-Europeans, know. A different language for one,
turning the stage of the everyday theatre into a cryptic decorum. The overwhelming display
of neon signs reminds us of everything we don’t and will never understand about this
country.
Semantic challenges keep hunting us in Gwangju. It would have been enough to cross the
differences between the producers and programmers on one side and the theatre makers
and choreographers on the other. But having people from all over Asia and Europe come
together for the opening of the Asian Arts Cultural Centre, in an attempt to set up an
exchange between a multitude of cultures, obviously does not simplify the communication. It
makes one wonder if there’s a possibility of a Eurasia, as dance critic Kim Namsoo suggests
in his preface of the rather large scaled festival brochure. He uses the analogy of whale
communication, which allows them to share information over huge distances.
There is a natural tendency to understand, to explain, to try to make sense of such a
complex situation. So let’s have a look at two whales that may be considered representative
but certainly make for an interesting dialogue. There’s the old whale Romeo Castallucci,
representing everything European. For some reason this is the first show we see and we are
generally impressed and overwhelmed. A white-grey machinery turns the holy theatre space
into a ruthless yet poetic production machine of shredded cow-bones. The machines spray,
turn and almost dance, covering the stage with the remains of slaughtered cows, a product
used in agriculture as a fertiliser. The catharsis is a projected text that connects everything
that preceded the performance (the real production of the morbid powder) and the cleaners
that by then have started to clean up the remains of the performance.
The young whale is Korean Kim Jisun, whose video triptych ‘Climax of the next scene’ shows
two separate Teletubbie avatars trying to arrange the items in their virtual space. Kim Jisun
started with the idea of looking at the world as if it were in a box. The Teletubbies guide us
on a journey through Grand Theft Auto, in which people die and kill without consequences,
and to the outer edges of the world of Minecraft, a place where one can virtually fall over the
cliff of the end of the world inviting a certain kind of player to venture on a quest to this
pixelated ‘glitch’ in the games programming.
The babylonian confusion between east and west is a mix of how Europeans see Asia, how
Asian think Europeans see Asia and the other way around. The definition of Asia being
subject of discussion for the Asians themselves. ’You have to understand that we don’t like
each other.’, says Malika from India. ‘We don’t visit the other Asian countries and we don’t
invite them. We don’t care about the others.’ This provocative statement did not result in a
riot but added to the idea of ‘Oneness is not sameness’ as Chinese You Mi had articulated it
earlier. It was Hong Kong based Kee Hong who tried to direct the polite confusion towards
practice solutions. His plea for a grass roots approach and the need for an Asian network for
production and coproduction further inspired the informal exchanges in the niches of the
program: the hallways, the limousine busses and the bars.
Strangely or logically it was the Europeans who questioned the Asian focus on Europe. Why
not take this unique moment in history to develop ‘Asian’ ways of creating, producing and
promoting theatre? Maybe the Japanese Deshima model could serve as a model. In 1700
when Japan went into a period of closing itself off from the world, the foreigners were mainly
Portuguese and Dutch. The Portuguese missionaries, trying to convince the native Asians of
the European world view, were mercilessly thrown into the volcanic ponds of Beppu. The
Dutch traders, more opportunistic than spiritual, were assigned the island Deshima, just of
the coasts of southern Japan, which served as a Dutch trading post until 1853.
This geographical distance assured a clear mental separation between the two cultures. An
exchange was possible but limited. However, geographical distance is an extinct concept. It
takes only about 11 hours to travel between Asia and Europe. And there’s the internet. So
the question remains if the Eurasian whales will swim in the waters between continents,
communicating with each other over impossible distances? Or are we slowly turning into
Teletubbies, trying to fertilise the common ground with the bleak dust of processed
skeletons?
Gert-Jan Stam
TAAT