Dance!

At certain times in my life, I've thought I may be psychic. I usually dismiss it as wishful thinking, but I have some pretty good evidence now. On Saturday, I started thinking about how I wanted to see a ballet performance in Korea, and assumed that I would have to see it in Seoul, because practically everything of artistic interest is there, not here. So I popped on the internet and did some googling only to find out that the Korea National Ballet was in Busan this weekend only! They were performing Swan Lake, and the principal in the role as the prince is a famous Korean man who danced with the Paris Opera Ballet. As you may imagine, I freaked out. I love, love, love going to ballets and frequently went alone to every performance I could in DC. Fortunately, here I have a friend Mara (Canadian co-teacher) who loves dance as much as I, so we went together to the Sunday matinee show. It was gorgeous! The settings and costuming were incredible. The corps de ballet was unbelievably in sync. The soloists and pas de deux parts made me want to cry. The orchestra sounded perfect. The whole execution was really fantastic.

As you have probably realized from this blog, I like to highlight what strikes me as weird or different here, but this performance was almost identical to what you'd expect at home, maybe better (definitely better than the Washington Ballet - blah). But there were two funny little things to pass along... First, at intermission, instead of sipping coffee and buying a piece of chocolate, Koreans buy sausage on a stick. Second, instead of summoning people back to their seats with a hand bell or xylophone, the sound of a tug boat horn and squawking seagulls sounds. Actually, that may just be an oddity to Busan. Either way, we were amused by that.

After the show, we noticed that traditional drumming show was about to start in an adjacent theater. We looked at each other and walked quickly over to that box office for the second round of dance. It was a high-energy, bright, loud show - the complete opposite of what we'd just come from. We loved it. At the end, the dancers continued to drum and invited people to the stage to dance with them and then the whole crowd marched through the aisles and out to the pavilion. It was like a spontaneous block party. So wonderful.

Next weekend is West Side Story! We can't wait to see if the lyrics are in English or Korean. I think I'll be happy either way.