The Ballerina And The Breakdancer

Last week we got an e-mail.

"GEV is planning on inviting EV teachers to the show " Ballerina who loves B-boy". As you heard, it is a world wide famous show. "

Well... world-famous might be pushing it a little, but it did get good reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe, so we signed up for the trip. A play about a ballerina who falls in love with a breakdancer, called, amazingly, Ballerina Who Loves B-Boy, sounded interesting if only for the dancing we might expect.

We made our way by public bus - the bus driver looking mildly terrified by the 70 waegookin making for his bus; the three other passengers merely bemused by the overflowing state of their usually empty ride home. My Science coteachers and I paused for dinner at a Japanese noodle restaurant near the theatre where the table was filled with beautiful, deep ceramic bowls brimming with thick white noodles and veggies.








We reached the theatre by 8. An entire section of the small space had been reserved for the foreigners, stopping the MC in his tracks as he realised a third of his audience wasn't laughing on time, but were turning to their Korean coteachers for translations first (although our friends were too busy messing about with our photos to be translating for us...) He got into the spirit though, testing out his English on us and laughing with glee when our American head teacher spoke back in Korean. Right from the start it was clear that the audeince were working members of the cast. Kids behind us chattered away, while adults clapped, cheered, and responded to winks and goads by the dancers.

The energy of the hip-hop dancers with their wild music, heavy beats and elastic moves contrasted with the slightly lacklustre ballet scenes so that by the time the heroine cast off her tutu to join the skimpily dressed breakdancing groupies it was an unsurprising choice - and not as irritating as the classic Grease makeover... The dancers leapt and spun and rolled in the air as if on strings. It was absolutely amazing - and even better for each move, each death-defying leap, being met by gasps, cheers and applause from the audience. A review of the show at the Edinburgh Fringe lamented the dour Scots' refusal to rise to the dancers' exhortations to clap along - no such problems here!

We were quickly drawn in by the dancers, who are members of an award-winning breakdance group. The lead dancer, the B-Boy of the title, was particularly eye-catching, his arms bristling with energy, strength gleaming in every muscle, his shirt falling open... uh... I mean... Where was I? Oh yeah, leaning forward to better take in the view... ahem, I mean, the dancing! The dancing!

There was no talking at all, which suited all of us perfectly. The meaning of the play was conveyed by movement, dance and sometimes exaggerated gesture, and it took me 15 minutes to realise that it was silent - I had already understood so much, my brain assumed the actors were talking.

Afterwards, the cast all stood on the edges as the audience piled onto the stage brandishing cameras and programmes. Cait and I ummed and aahed until we finally joined the other EV teachers in a group photo with the cast. Very odd - somehow can't imagine it happening on Broadway - which is where this production was last put on.

When the autographing and photo opping had ended, and we'd been introduced to the producer and theatre owner, as befits the celebs we are, Cait, Leigh, Kori and I wandered out to find the nearest subway. Earlier that day, the streets of Seoul had been filled with a sea of weeping Koreans, gathered for the funeral of the ex-president Roh Moo-Hyun, who, in keeping with Korea's massive suicide rate, jumped off a cliff on Sunday. I'd seen the crowds on TV that afternoon, and there were several people worried that we wouldn't actually get into Seoul. Between the bus stop and the theatre, though, all we'd seen were hundreds of riot police, settling down in rows to eat their dinner off their riot shields. Now, as we walked down the street we saw crowds of people holding candles, signing posters tacked to the temple walls, or eating on picnic blankets with their families. When we emerged into the main square there was still a band playing, and the streets were packed wall-to-wall with mourners from babies to grandfathers, and more than the usual number of drunks curled up in doorways.






















The outpouring of grief has been somewhere near the level of Princess Diana's death in 1997. The most interesting thing about his death is the reaction of ordinary Koreans. Roh was accused of corruption, and there is a major ongoing investigation at the moment. Koreans are angry at the current government for pursuing the investigation and hounding Roh to his death. Nobody seems to care whether the charges are fair or not; they think that they should not have been made against a senior official, regardless of truth. It's wrapped up with the Korean sense of honour. An argument will always be avoided in Korean society, because it is unthinkable that it should reach a point where one will be forced to accede to the other, and thus lose face. Roh's honour was tarnished and he could do nothing but commit suicide...