Folk/Artists Sounds of Korea

Editor’s Note: The following piece is the first in a series of short stories profiling many of the performers in the National Folk Festival Aug. 22-24 in Bangor.

Costumed in contemporary one-piece Korean dresses of vibrant primary shades mixed with pink and greens, the women in Sounds of Korea dance by bobbing their heads and shoulders up and down in an almost rhythmic cadence. The accompanying gong and janggo (hourglass drum) start slowly, but build intensity in a repetitive syncopation.

As it speeds up, the frenzied farmer’s dance becomes a symbol of the farmers striving to achieve Zen-like oneness with the gods, according to Gloria Lee, program director for the group’s parent organization, the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Association.

“The dancers want to reach that state of ecstasy with the gods,” Lee said. “It’s musical ecstasy.”

A shamanistic ritual that originated in Korean farmlands thousands of years ago, the farmer’s dance united people in prayer, imploring the harvest gods for bountiful crops.

While the dance has undergone generational changes, it still conveys the country’s historic agrarian lifestyle, when all but the nobility survived in farming villages.

Now onstage instead of in the fields, Sounds of Korea gives movement to the dance and voice to the traditional music of Korean culture. The 16-person song, drum and dance troupe from New York’s Korean-American community is dedicated to promoting the country’s artistic heritage.

“The singing has always been a way for the Korean people to express their emotions and deal with daily life,” Lee said. “These were lower-class people so a lot of the music shows the suffering that can come with that.”

Sounds of Korea incorporates short vocal melodies with the ethereal presence of the daegum (bamboo flute) and the 12-string zither. Circular in pattern and filled with percussive rhythms, the music focuses on common traditional themes of the culture.

“They’re basically either work songs or songs to do with love,” Lee said.

Underscoring the performance are the prominent symbols of the culture’s ties to nature, Lee said. Dancers wear banners bound to their chests – signifying the sky, the heavens, the earth and the sea – which meet and tie together behind their backs.

“The dance is all about coming together with nature, because shamanism believes the gods are in nature,” Lee said.

Sounds of Korea performs at noon and 9:15 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 23, and at 1:15 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 24, on the Penobscot Stage.

– By Tony Saucier of the NEWS Staff