B-Boy Kung

As a K-Performance supporter and also as it was Korea In Motion Festival Period, I got a very rare chance to watch a performance called B-Boy Kung plus to learn a little bit of K-Pop dance. I actually had already guessed what the dance would be, and yes it was Gangnam Style by Psy.

Gangnam Style has taken the world. It has spread like virus. Everyone knows Gangnam Style and its very famous horse dance. I actually have already learnt the dance, so no surprises, yet it was still pretty interesting. At the very end, we split onto two teams and had a little horse dance battle. Of course my team won and we got a pair of socks.

Now the main dish: B-Boy Kung. If I had to make this short, I would summarize everything in one word: Amazing. It was really beyond my expectation. B-Boy Kung is a street dance performance. Also, there is a story that in my point of view as an audience is pretty well constructed. It was really easy understandable even without words.
The story is about a group of dancers called Gorilla that lost their place to practice and hang out. Also, there is this very rich guy who I think bought that place. With the power of money, he also succeed to take one of the members of the group. He, the dancer, then becomes the rich guys member. The story goes on until finally they meet at one dance competition which prize is USD 500,000.

The scene that I liked the most wast when the main character was in dilemma between his dance group or his job. He did really good acting and his popping skill is undoubted. There was also a scene where several dancers wearing black clothes and white masks on. It was really scary because the room was dark and glowed everything white. The story  and the dance was really good.
The place, oh I love the place. It is very small room with the quota of not too many audience. It really gives us a private feel and closer view of the performance. I would say that the place is the best one among the performance room I have ever been. It is located at Samjin Jaeyak (삼진제약) Building B1 floor. If you know Hongik University, go to its main gate and turn left until you find B-Boy Kung posters.
Overall, it was a very exciting, interesting, enjoyable one hour and a half. I was really lucky to be able to watch the performance. Also, the KOINMO team took some videos and made it really neat. Check it out!



Thanks KTO! And for you who desperately want to watch this performance, hurry up! you could get cheaper ticket as it is still KOINMO festival!

KOINMO: http://www.koreainmotion.com/eng/
B-Boy Kung : http://www.sjbboys.com/

Me and the main character
of the performance

angga | 앙가

Comic Music Show: Wedding

Wedding is really lack of story. Even more, there are several things that do not go with the concept of this performance, which is wedding. For instance, the magic show in the middle of the show. It really has no relation with wedding itself. I would say that this performance is more like a talent show. Everyone seems to have talent in playing musical instruments, singing, dancing, and of course, acting. Those are the plus points of this performance. I really enjoyed them playing variety of musical instruments. One person might be capable of playing several musical instruments, beside singing, dancing, and acting. I was even more interested in them showing their talents rather than following the story.
Basically, the story is just about a couple having their wedding party. The father of the bride did not agree with the wedding but the couple kept on trying to convince him. The show went on along with some unrelated scenes even though they were pretty entertaining. There was one scene when a male stripper came and took off his pants and showed his glittery red underwear. Everybody was shocked and screaming. The stripper turned out to be a gay and fell in love with the event organizer guy. I will save the rest of the story for you to watch it by yourselves. I know that you can guess the end of the story.

The stage

Regarding the place of the performance, it is pretty difficult to find. There are many buildings around it and it is such a hard-to-be-seen type of place. Also, there is another performance with really similar name and I was mistakenly going to go for that one. The room is very small, which I like it very much. I always thing that small room for performance really gives some sort of private and exclusive kind of feeling. The stage, though, is not really eye-catchy, or maybe it is just me.
Overall, I did not quite enjoy the story but on the other hand, their talents, the comedy, and all the surprises were really entertaining. Plus, they put gay couple in the performance which I think ... come on, it is Korea. I think it is a good thing because it gives the audience the feeling that they are also open-minded. Worth watching? Me: Yeah, you?

Me and the couple

angga | 앙가


More information:
About Wedding (Korean page)
Ticket (Korean page)

PS: Special thanks to Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) for the 2 tickets!

K-Performance - Karma

Karma is a non-verbal theatrical performance which consist of drama, martial arts and a bit drum performance. It has structured story line and it inserts some martial performances along the story. The story is about jealousy, betrayal, and how one recovers from greediness. Also, there are also some painting performances which makes it more interesting. The play time is about one hour and a half. The theater is called Karma Theater (Gaya Theater) located at exit 7 of Chungjongno Station (충정로역). Opens everyday: Weekdays 8PM, Saturday 3PM and 7PM, and Sunday 3PM. The ticket fares are KRW 70,000 for VIP, KRW 50,000 for R-seat, and KRW 40,000 for S-seat.

As a K-Performance Supporter, I got a chance to enjoy the show. The theater is pretty small which makes it more private and enjoyable. One of good points beside the story is different (even though it's quite predictable), there is this one distinct character which I might say put a distinction for Karma among the other performances. The name "Karma" itself, though, quite irrelevant with the story. I do not know why they chose this name, but before watching this performance, I was expecting something more related to the word "Karma".

Nevertheless, exclusive-feel theater, good location, and different story, I guess it is worth watching. Enjoy!

www.karma.co.kr

angga | 앙가 

Saman Dance - Korean Speech Contest in KAIST

Saman dance performed at KAIST during judgement time of Korean Speech Contest on November 16, 2010.

2010년 11월 16일에 한국과학기술원에 있는 한국어 말하기 대회에서 사만라는 인도네시아의 전통 춤을 췄다.

December 2, 2010

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2010 World Great Baekje Festival - Third Day

This is it!!The first day of 2010 World Great Baekje. Located not far from our hotel, we headed to a palace which I was told that this is the first time they open and invite people to get inside and experience the Baekje time. There are King's and Queen's property, meeting room, a pagoda, praying place, etc. I was told that the pillar of the palace is kind of unique. Because it is wider at the center, which makes it stronger ... well that's what she said. The environment was very calm and I guess this palace was a very comfortable place. There were also some monks which I don't know if they live in this palace or not. I guess not.

 I personally like this palace. Anyway, there was a performance, which took us back to the Baekje era. I wonder, why the soldiers looked like old men, where were the young soldiers? And there was no knight riding horse as me and my friends were expecting. But it was interesting.

The palace trip was awesome, I like it, I love it, I would love to go again next time or maybe to other palaces.

Next to the palace, we visited Baekje Historical Museum. Just like any other museums, you know what is inside, right? But based on our group leader information, the properties inside the museum are the real ones.

There was (again) a place that was scheduled for us to visit. But, due to uncertain reason, it was also cancelled. That was actually a pity, because we might not have any chance to visit this festival again. But, anyway ... these 3 days experience were exhausting, yet we learnt, saw, experienced new things which made our exhaustion became not a problem at all. Visit 2010 World Great Baekje Festival, now!!

More pictures here.

September 19, 2010

앙가

-- Menu for today: Beef for lunch with a friend and Taekwondo in the evening.

Pre-2010 World Great Baekje Festival - Second Day

With the weather was less hotter than the first day, the second day was also better than the first day. Not only that I went to new places but also there were very interesting performances at the end of the day. The day was begun with the tombs ... again!!?? but it was a nice view from the top, though. Worth visiting.

It is called Tumuli in Neungsan-ri, Buyeo. There are 7 tombs of Baekje kings during the period of 538-660 A.D. Looks like the land of Teletubbies ... if you know what it is.

The next stop is Jeongnimsaji Museum, located in Buyeo. What is in there? there are a 5 stairs pagoda, Buddhas, and emm ... a museum (what?). You know what museum is like. And of course, there is a connection with Baekje Kingdom, because like you know, we were like in Baekje trip, so isn't that obvious?! hahah.

My group leader was simulating how Koreans bow to the Buddha

The last place to visit on that day, according to the what was written on the schedule, was supposed to be a castle. But, as we walked on the track, we did not see any castle. In fact, there was not really nothing to see. I guess there was another track that we could have gone to, which might lead to the castle. Anyway, it was called Busosanseong Fortress. I did not really take any pictures.

This is the interesting part. At night, we went to the same place as the night before (where there were performances and games) and ... ok let me put this way. On 16th, actually there was a one-day cultural trip offered by WSK, a program that I join, and they mentioned that there would be B-Boy performance, which I heard is a great performance. I had a kind of sad feeling because I missed the B-Boy performance due to my participation on this Baekje trip. But then that night, unexpectedly and luckily, there was B-Boy performance. And it was totally awesome.

But, it was not the only fun. That night, each of group (there were 12 group) had to perform their own performances. My team were doing this model-wannabe thing and singing my favorite Korean song (find my post about this, and you will know what song it is). The other team performances were really interesting. There were drama, guys dressed like girls, dance, Happy Birthday songs sang by many languages, dance again, and etc. My favorite was the guys dressed like girls, it was really funny and my travel mate was one of them hahah.

One of the performances, they were really cute ^^

Nice night to wrap up the exhausting day ^^. Pictures here.

September 19, 2010

앙가

-- Just had a coffee together with my friend and took picture of my 귀여운 친구 ^^

Pre-2010 World Great Baekje Festival - First Day

2010 World Great Baekje Festival is the first (that's what I was told) festival in order to introduce the to the world about one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea which is Baekje Kingdom. This event is being held from today (September 18) until October 17, 2010. Taking place in around Gongju and Buyeo, this festival is absolutely worth visiting. Anyway, I am not going to write in detail about this event, because you can find most of important information on the 2010 World Great Baekje Festival website. However, I am going to write about my experience of 2 days before the festival and 1 day at the time of the festival. Since I think it is going to be a long post, I have decided to separate it into 3 parts based on the day. As written on this post's title, this one is the first day of the journey.

공주 [GongJu]

Departing from Chungnam National University, we went to Gongju National University to attend the opening ceremony. Hundreds of people were there from a lot of countries, including South Korea. It was an extremely hot day, but since it is just the beginning, our spirit was still on the top. Besides, the dancer cooled the day.

Anyways, I actually have been to Gongju for a school trip and I was actually expecting to go to somewhere I have never been in Gongju in this trip. But yeah, the first place that we went after the ceremony was Gongsanseong Fortress which I have been to. It is a fortress and there are some tracks inside that you can walk through and enjoy the view. Luckily, this time i went to different track from the previous trip. But, before walking through the tracks, I found an interesting torturing equipment ... and even the blood.

Too bad there was not any deep explanation about the fortress when we walk through the tracks from the expert guide, so it was like more to sightseeing than history trip. But, the brief information written on the stone-like thing is enough, too. ^^

Let's go to the next stop which is The Songsan-ri Tombs and Tomb of King Muryeong. Unlike the fortress, this place I had never been to. Information here.

부여 [Buyeo]

On the schedule, actually there was one more place to visit, but due to the weather problem, it was canceled. We went to the Lotte Hotel where we stayed 2 nights over there. It is located in Buyeo and it was a very decent hotel. The room was good and one thing I was so amazed of was the toilet. Yes, it has these fancy buttons with variety of functions.

Even though the room was very decent, it was not really comfortable. It was because this room was occupied by 8 people, and there was only 2 mattress in a room and a big-size bed in another room. It became a problem, but actually we managed to spend 2 nights there.

The first day of the trip was closed by some performances. There were some music performance, of course Korean-ish performances, and also games. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera, but I captured some pictures by using my phone, but you know ...

One of the games, those guys played good

End of the first day ^^. Pictures here. 

September 18, 2010

앙가

--

A: 몇살이에요?

B: 저 스물두살이에요.

A: 아 진짜?? 믿을수 없어

ㅋㅋㅋ

Nanta -- Drama Cooking Performance only in South Korea =]

Nanta -- the Broadway kind of performance in South Korea ... wait, it is NOT the same as Broadway hahah. why? because you don't have to understand any language to watch this performance. They speak Nanta language which everybody speaks =] lol ... it is a non-verbal performance ^^;. And then, unlike Broadway which insert some song (which is sung by the performer) to its performance, Nanta insert this traditional music of South Korea which using cooking utensils as their music instruments, hmm interesting~~

They also come to the audience and ask some audience to participate in the performance, how cool is that?!? too bad they did not choose me T.T; The genre that I watched is Comedy, I am not sure if they have any other genre =]. It was so funny and really interesting that I did not want it to end. It really is worth watching ^^

Nanta Website!!

-- Errr,, I watched it in Myong-dong, Seoul ^^. Too bad audience are prohibited in taking picture or video during the performance. But, even if I had been allowed to record it, i would not have recorded it. It was too wasteful to miss the performance just to record it =] 

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Saman Dance

Saman Dance Performance -- for the first time in my life I and other Indonesians performs Saman Dance (Dance of Thousand Hands) in Daejeon Convention Center, Daejeon, South Korea. We had less than 10 days to practice. Even though I made so many mistakes I was still happy because I could make it through the end of the performance ^^;

-- my first post after like forever has not post anything --sowwwwyyy been really busy.

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