Avant-garde show puts spotlight on hanok woes

by Yim Seung-Hye

An avant-garde performance by a budding 25-year old Korean composer will resondate through a small hanok (traditional Korean house) tomorrow, taking advantage of the tight quarters among audience members to create unique sounds.

Shin Ji-Soo, the composer of "Nokha," an anagram of "hanok," said that "interaction is the concept of the show" s the 50 minute performance is shaped by attendees' actions.

As the audience moves around the house's garden, their movements will be captured via cameras and converted into music before being relayed to performers in real time via iPad.

"The performance is a music installation in which the sounds interact with the spatial disposition of the audience in the installation," Shin said in a statement. "Fragments of precomposed music will be played t pre-determined points when visitors haphzardly arrive at them."

The four performers will play a Korean traditional instrument called a geomungo (six-stringed zither) as well as a violin, a flute, and ancient toy pianos.

The hanok being used for tomorrow's performance belongs to a UK born activist David Kilburn, who campaigns for the preservation of the traditional homes. It is located in Bukchon, a famous hanok village in central Seoul.

Tomorrow's performance will be held at 7pm at Kilburn's hanok located in an area marked as Bukchon View No 7, in Gahoe-dong.

Nokha will also be performed at the Jeonju Hanok Living Experience Centre in North Jeolla on May 11th and at a hanok owned by MyungGaWon Company in Hamyang County, Soth Gyeongsang on May 12th. For more information visit www.nokha.org

sharon@joongang.co.kr

A personal note: My wife and I bought our hanok in 1988 which has been our home in Gahoe-dong ever since. David Kilburn