Review

A Woman Summoned by a Women [Women]_Things that Remember 2018_Suwon(note1)

How long has it been since the beating began? 

The room was already dark, 

The clothes washed by my grandmother always smelled like a mop. 

Maybe I was sweating when getting beaten. The musty smell of mop spread. 

That night, the back of my overweight grandmother lying on her side in the dark room looked like a wall.

She hummed ‘Life of Women’ by Mi-ja Lee. 

Her humming is still ringing in my ears.

Excerpts from Ara Jo

A woman sitting on the floor is quietly putting on a burgundy sweater. She is holding a hanger. There is a QR code displayed in front of her. The QR code is scanned with a cell phone. A link pops up and a story is told. Her memory of getting whipped by her grandmother is converted into sounds that can be heard. Then, a voice of Vietnamese woman follows. The words cannot be understood but I continue to listen. I stare at the woman. I know the woman sitting on the floor. She is Ara Jo who directed and performed [Inevitable] at National Theater Company of Korea few years ago. Ara Jo, a Pansori Yeonhee performer, an actor, and a dancer summoned her father who was once a famous comedian in the 1980s and 1990s but is now suffering from dementia in her piece, [Inevitable]. The piece is about [Ara Jo’s] trauma of herself who was pressured to start Pansori under patriarchy. The trauma she developed throughout her puberty is manifested as gut, from a stage to dressing room then, to a stage again, and through current performance to past videos expressing her naked self through her piece. The presence of Ara Jo’s father surrounding the character, ‘Ara Jo’ has always been lingering with me ever since I watched the piece. It felt strange listening to the story of a grandmother beating [her granddaughter]. The feeling was due to the unfamiliarity of a conventional definition of ‘grandmother’ who is a member of family. A father figure expressed by [Inevitable] is not the only thing that constitutes a family. However, the unfamiliarity that I felt from some other member of the family that had been ignored reminded me of the violent memory of ‘beating’ as well as the hidden existence and the memory of oppression. 

[Women_Things that Remember 2018 Suwon] is a creative group NONI’s series project. The ‘Things that Remember’ series are created through research and workshops and suggest the audience to see familiar things in different perspective. This is a portable-site-specific performance, which explores the space, memory, and the horizontal relationship of an object and a body as the object and the body where the memories of the location are embedded become the mediator that connects the audience, memory, and place. Compared to previous projects, [Women_Things that Remember 2018 Suwon] is a recall of a person rather than a space or an event. Among them, a ‘woman’ summoned by a ‘woman artist suggests a new relationship. (note2) 

Women(note3) were invisible entities.

Has a woman been summoned as a protagonist in our lives? When you think about our fathers, brothers, and numerous male colleagues, seniors, and boss who had become influential characters or protagonist of a story as well as how ‘men’ who had always been the ‘protagonist’ influence the life of a ‘woman’ and its narrative, it makes me wonder if a ‘woman’ or relationship between women has ever been the major narrative of our lives. 

Lying down with my eyes opened, I observed my mother. 

She puts her clothes squatting down beside the shopping and cries. 

She carries me on her back and leaves the house without letting my father know.

Ting-a-ling, cyclo sound, and the sound of rain and wind. My mother and I took the cyclo to the express bus station at the break of dawn, silent and dark. 

She hugged me to keep me warm.

“My mom is warm and has a scent I like”
On our way to the country side on the old bus, a voice of an old woman suddenly came from inside the bus.

“Hurry up, why are you moving so slow like a turtle?”
Right after, an accident occurred that the bus almost got into the river. 

Fortunately, the trees on the riverside prevented the bus from sinking in the river.
Everyone was safe. 

In the middle of the chaos, people crying were heard.

The driver saved the youngest passenger, me, first. 

I lost one of my shoes that my mother bought. It was cold because of the rain. I kept asking for my shoe in tears. 

My mother gave me a piggy back as she was holding a shopping basket. 

She sung a Vietnam lullaby to me with me on her back until we arrived at my grandmother’s house 

(lullaby) “Because this wooden bridge is too weak, I will hold your hand until we cross the bridge.

(Skip)

My mother’s sad voice, the voice of the wind. 

It still reminds me of my mother’s sad face when I look at the shopping basket. 

Excerpts from Ok-su Yeo

In a patriarchal society, women were ‘invisible.’ Remembering an absent existence, a sinful existence– ‘A Woman Remembered by a Woman’ demands a new relationship and an act of symbolization. The audience is standing at the very moment where the acts of newly creating the memory rather than just remembering and reiterating and revealing women who have been ignored and treated as ‘invisible beings’ and more or less, ‘oppressed beings.’ Ok-su Yeo, a mother of two sons and a dual citizen of Korea and Vietnam, recalls her mother from a shopping basket.

Hierarchy also existed within women. 

Her name is Tui. It means water. 

She is neither fat nor skinny. Neither tall nor short. 

She likes wearing different colored peculiar outer garments. She wears big glasses and has curly hair. She has braces but always puts on a big smile. 

She is a teacher and teaches the kids to live happily. The kids love her. 

She lost her brother, and people blamed her for his death. 

It was a long time ago, but she still suffers. 

Then again, she always finds a way to heal, and shares a positive energy to others.

Excerpts from Pham Minh Tu 

There, alongside the words translated back into Vietnamese, they again reminded me of another ‘invisible beings’ who should not be forgotten beyond the ‘relationship between women.’ Countless Korean soldiers slaughtered the Vietnamese and acted ruthlessly violent to women during the Vietnam War and now Korean men are engaged in international marriage with Vietnamese women. Despite their faulty actions, they never apologized. It makes us think of women who are discriminated and oppressed rather than treated fairly and equally. Overturning of everyday relationships, and the recognizing of invisible beings are discussed. Pham Minh Tu digs up her memories of losing her brother a long ago. The memories of incidents, which occurred from an oppressing relationship still hold oneself back. Mi-kyung Lee, a dramaturg, shares her story as a mother of two daughters. She tells us the story of an extremely ordinary child yet, different from the norm of the society, and of the memory of brutal violence, the very moment she began to beat her first daughter: The memory of her first daughter’s resistance as she pleaded, “Do NOT hit me.” Pham Minh Tu is looking for ways to set herself free from her memories and Mi-kyung Lee stopped beating her children after the incident. 

She was warm. 

It was when she lifted me up during our first dance improvisation dance practice. We danced in harmony and succeeded in smooth lifting. The physical touch was remarkably tender. Her breathing was gentle and calm. She was so close to me that I could even see the texture of her curly hair and tensed muscle. Her frowning face was how much she was focused. The lighting alike to that of sunlight smeared on her skin and face. The studio and the people were spinning hazy like a shadow play. There was sound in the room but I certainly could not hear. Everything seemed stopped in silence. When she put me down, the wooden floor was so comfortable, and as it absorbed my feet in total preparation. 

Excerpts from Pham Minh Tu

How can a woman face another woman? Memories of violence, memories of vanishment, memories of oppression, and memories of being a mother linger back the very moment when a woman encounters another woman. The relationship is recalled from memories that were important yet, not recorded. Women are no longer history. [Women_Things that Remember 2018 Suwon] raises questions again regarding the structure and sense imprinted in life, poses a problem of ‘trivial customs’ and attempts to acknowledge and overthrow the existing hierarchy. The memories and objects become the mediums, which recall the senses that was once lost.