Suwon Hwaseong Theatre Festival

Last week I spent most of my out of school time at the Suwon Hwaseong Theatre Festival. It was an international theatre festival that took place at different spots along Hwaseong Fortress (the wall in Suwon) and the best part was; most of it was free. My friends and I took in quite a few shows and enjoyed most of them.

This is first show I saw, "The Angel and the Woodcutter." At this point the woodcutter is being forced into the army and eventually abandons his family and his wife is forced into prostitution in order to feed their son. It was a really good show. There was no talking, only dance, so it was really easy to follow the story.

This is "MOB (Mobile, Oblique and Bucolic)". It was basically some drumming clowns who wound throught the audience and then hooked themselves to this crane and drummed while dangling in the sky. Interesting to watch...

This show was called Ku-Do. It was based around a video game theme. Here the actors can be seen emerging from a giant cube. I really like this one, but other described it as "pretentious." A woman did give birth to a rock at one point, so I can see how it might be seen that way...

This is "Blue Bird" from a German company. They spoke in English and they projected subtitles in Korean. I found this one to be visually interesting, but story-wise could have used some help.

This was my favourite show, "History of Madness." It was about the effect of the Korean War on Korean people. It was all in Korean, but was so visually powerful that it moved me to tears. This is a picture from the end of the play when the "leader" is being lifted up the side of the wall.

This is the only pictures I managed to get of "Apropo de Butterfly" before the usher came over and gave me the "X." It says "This is not a contemporary play."

This was my least favourite of all the shows. It was called "A Soldiers Tale." It was all in Korean, so maybe if we could have understood it we would have liked it more.

The last show we saw was called "Charanga" and it was by a Portugese company. It consisted of clowns on bicycles with various brass instruments. It was neat to watch and the music was cool. I managed to get a litte video clip of it:

All in all it was a great week. I felt more like myself this last week than I have in a long time, and it inspired me to be creative again, which is never a bad thing.