Lee Ja-ram:Youthful Diva of Pansori

*English transcript of my interview with Lee Ja-ram. translated from my original transcript in Korean for <KOREANA> magazine's 2015 spring copy. You can also read this script in 9 langauages at the KOREANA website.

http://www.koreana.or.kr/index.asp?lang=en 

<Interview>

 

Lee Ja-ram: Youthful Diva of Pansori

 

Kim Soo-hyun / Performing Arts Columnist

 

[Lead]

Lee Ja-ram, 36, is a pansori prodigy. She has reignited the popularity of the uniquely Korean opera genre to be enjoyed by audiences of all ages, young and old, in Korea and everywhere she performs. Tickets for her performances are invariably sold out, a rare phenomenon for traditional Korean performing arts. She has wowed audiences and critics alike, including those overseas as well. In late January, l met Lee who had just returned from the Sydney Festival 2015, where she gave tour de force performances of “Ukchuk-ga: Pansori Mother Courage,” her own adaptation of the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht’s anti-war play “Mother Courage and Her Children.”

 

[Excerpt]

“I’m often mentioned as a conspicuous example of ‘popularization and globalization of traditional culture.’ But I’ve never been conscious of such a role myself. I’ve just found clues, with which I can communicate with more people, after a process of raising questions within myself and trying to find answers.”

 

 

[Text]

Mother Courage cries out sorrowfully over her dead daughter’s body. The audience at the jam-packed Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre erupts in applause, electrified by her mournful and pathetic singing. Again and again throughout a show of about two hours and 30 minutes, the audience showers applause and cheers upon Lee, spurring on her solo performance of 15 characters, including Mother Courage, in “Ukchuk-ga,” her rapturous transnational retelling of Brecht’s trenchant tale.

“It was not an easy decision to put this play on the stage in Sydney, where this music genre is completely unknown. But it received wide acclaim and more rave reviews from critics than expected,” said Fiona Winning, the head of programming at the Sydney Festival. Lee also said in recalling the audience’s response that it felt as though “they were heated up.”

Lee was the scriptwriter, composer, art director, and sole performer of “Ukchuk-ga,” which straddles the traditional lines between pansori and theater. She used African percussion instruments, a guitar, and a double bass, as well as traditional Korean musical instruments, to create dramatic tension, while maintaining the distinctive characteristics of traditional pansori, a one-person opera, in which a single performer spins an epic tale by singing, acting, reciting lines, and providing narration, accompanied by a drummer. In every way, she owned this telling of the harrowing life story of a hard-bitten woman and her struggles to survive the horrors of war. The story has been adapted from “Jeokbyeok-ga,” one of the five surviving classics of the pansori tradition, derived from the Chinese historical legend of the Battle of Red Cliffs. “Ukchuk-ga” leads up to the decisive confrontation that ended China’s Han Dynasty; the Brecht drama unfolds during the European Thirty Years’ War.

Lee was also the creator of “Sacheon-ga,” an earlier production of so-called creative pansori, which premiered in 2008 (“Ukchuk-ga” premiered in 2011), based on another Brecht play, “The Good Person of Szechwan.” Set in 21st century Korea, “Sacheon-ga” revolves around Lee’s portrayal of Sun-deok, the lead character, whose kindness makes a mockery of the absurdities and debilitating aspects of contemporary society ― obsession with physical appearance, fetishistic credentialism, and unrelenting competition. Rewarded and tested for her innate kindness, she struggles to “Do good!” notwithstanding her unattractiveness, poverty, and vulnerability to the predations of others. Lee received the Best Actress Award for this work at the International Theatre Festival KONTACT, held in Poland in 2010.

“Sacheon-ga” and “Ukchuk-ga” shed new light on contemporary times by applying classical storytelling and confronting common issues of the times through the medium of pansori. Lee’s renditions of these works received rave reviews at home and abroad: in France, Poland, Romania, Brazil, and Uruguay. Since 2011, France’s Théâtre National Populaire in Lyon has invited Lee every year.

 

‘Things local are things global’

Kim Soo-hyun: I understand that the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre allows only those artists who are dedicated to original art works to perform on its stage. Your pansori performance at the theater, which made headlines here and abroad, was quite exceptional. The Sydney Morning Herald, in its January 20 issue, called your performance “a percussive interpretation Brecht would have approved of.” “The effect was devastating,” the daily added. I’m curious about what actual response you felt you received there.

Lee Ja-ram: I felt that I had told the audience, in a country where pansori was totally unknown, that “this is pansori and this is a cultural heritage of Korea.” In fact, I was nervous and scared because it was my first performance in an English-speaking country, although I had traveled to many European and Latin American countries. In Sydney, there were bursts of applause in the middle of my performance that I had to stop once in a while. I was really happy because it was a “banging success,” as you might say. The stage director said that he had rarely seen so many standing ovations for a performance in the over 26 years he had worked in the field of performing arts in Australia.

KS: What parts of “Ukchuk-ga” surprised them?

LJ: Be they Koreans or foreigners, audiences marvel at the fact that a solo singer can play several characters and maintain dramatic tension for quite a long time, performing with such rich sound textures. Above all, they are surprised at our achievements in adding something new to our long tradition. Some of the critical reviews about my performance wrote of the need to discuss the future direction of their own opera.

KS: Koreans have long felt it necessary to publicize our traditional arts widely in the international community. What do you think of the slogan “things Korean are things global”?

LJ: I’d like to say like this: “Things most natural for me are things most global.” If you ask people on the street what it is they think is the most quintessentially Korean, they will answer differently. I think the things most natural for me are things [that are] most contemporary. In turn, I, in depicting social phenomena, am reflecting the most contemporary images. I’m often mentioned as a conspicuous example of “popularization and globalization of traditional culture.” But I’ve never been conscious of such a role myself. I’ve just found clues, with which I can communicate with more people, after a process of raising questions within myself and trying to find answers.

KS: In Korea, audiences respond spontaneously to pansori performances with loud exclamations like “Eolssu! Eolssigu!” “Jotta!” (Good!), or “Jalhanda!” (Good job!). So, I want to know how foreign audiences respond to your performances.

LJ: Before my performances, I tell them, “Shouts of interjections from the audience are an important part of pansori. If you give a performer such shout-outs during pauses, it cheers her on and energizes her even more. I’ll show you how to do it. Let’s do it together!” Then, they clap instead of shouting interjections, delivering the same effect to me. I now remember saying to an audience at the end of a performance some time ago, “I now feel that I’ve become your friend. This is pansori. Whether you had knowledge of pansori before or not, you’ve now experienced it.”

 

‘My duty is to keep tradition alive’

Last year, Lee introduced “An Ugly Person/Murder,” a pansori adaptation of two short stories by Joo Yo-seop (1902-1972), to the public. “An Ugly Person” is a story about an ugly woman who has been treated as a monster since her birth, while “Murder” is a story about a prostitute who looks back on her life after falling in love by chance. She also premiered a pansori adaptation of “Bon Voyage, Mr. President,” a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, at the Tongyeong International Music Festival. As an artist who has been undertaking so many creative ventures without a pause, Lee believes that it is her duty to keep traditional pansori alive.

A talented child singer since age four, Lee began learning pansori in earnest at 11. After participating in a children’s traditional music program, she became the first full-time student of the late pansori master Eun Hee-jin, from whom she learned the basics of the genre. She studied pansori at middle and high schools of traditional arts and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in pansori from Seoul National University’s Department of Korean Music. In 1999, when she was 20, she was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest pansori artist to perform “Chunhyang-ga” (Song of Chunhyang) for eight hours straight. She has also recorded albums of her performances of other pansori works such as “Sugung-ga” (Song of the Undersea Palace), “Jeokbyeok-ga” (Song of Red Cliffs), and “Simcheong-ga” (Song of Sim Cheong).

KS: I saw a change in the works you released after “Sacheon-ga” and “Ukchuk-ga.”

LJ: To be honest, there was a time when I hated my success in “Ukchuk-ga.” I felt a very heavy burden of responsibility for giving solo shows in a big theater like the LG Arts Center. So, I tried to avoid performing in such a big theater for a while. The pansori I like is the one in the environment of a small theater. I can find myself full of emotions even if I stand on an empty stage, simply wearing a cotton skirt and a T-shirt and holding a traditional fan in my hand. This I found out belatedly. “An Ugly Person/Murder” and “Bon Voyage, Mr. President,” the works that I performed on small stages, were part of my efforts to come closer to the original pansori style. Of course, I’m still young, which means I should be ready to perform either on a big or small stage. Fortunately, a play that I’m currently adapting is “Our Town,” by the American playwright Thornton Wilder. I’m envisioning it in a somewhat bigger picture, which I can’t properly present to the audience in a small theater.

KS: “An Ugly Person/Murder” won three prizes, including the New Concept Theatre prize at the Dong-a Theatre Awards in 2014. What do you think of the term New Concept Theatre?

LJ: I’m really thankful for that, because it means that Korean theatrical circles have come to accept pansori as one of their genres. In fact, I’ve [always] felt that I belong neither to traditional music nor to theater in the full sense of the word. This prize gave me both encouragement and official recognition. I also hope that this occasion will pave the way for many young pansori students to work in a bigger arena called theater.

KS: Some people point out that the sphere of traditional pansori is dwindling gradually, whereas the boundaries of creative pansori are expanding.

LJ: I think it important to find a balance between the traditional and creative pansori genres. Indeed, I’ve kept working on traditional pansori, even though I’ve often been considered active mainly in the creative pansori genre. For example, I’ve given traditional pansori performances at Café Yiri near Hongik University every autumn, where the seats are filled with young viewers. I want to see hope there. I hope a change will arise, if I keep trying hard despite any difficulties.

KS: What are your plans for the future?

LJ: First of all, I’ll give a performance of “Bon Voyage, Mr. President,” which I premiered in Tongyeong, soon in Seoul. I have plans to perform in Okinawa this summer and in Lyon next year. I hope I can finish writing my script of “Our Town” by the end of this year.