flamenco journey 2

III. Bailaora and  writer

 

 

1.You are inspiring!

 

One evening in a Chinese restaurant I happened to sit at table side by side with a girl and her family who, she said, has just come from Spain. There the foodstuff I was eating resulted in the pleasant conversation on flamenco as below between her and me. It was her father who said first to me," What dish is it ? It looks delicious. Um... smells good". And I replied, " This? boiled duck," recommending it as their main dish:

: You study Spanish?

 

: Yes. languages in Spain. You love Spanish ?

 

: I just a few words- ole', baile or cante.

but I am going to study it to come closer to flamenco.

 

: flamenco? Really?

 

: Yes. I love flamenco

 

: Oh, I love the flamenco dance as much as the sea color of the Mediterrenean.

 

: You dance it?

 

: No. but I wanna dance it.

 

: Then, the Mediterranean is beautiful? What color has the sea ? 

Deep blue or emerald green ,pure, as that of your eyes?     

 

:(blinking her pure eyes) The sea is fascinating beyond description.

It resembles flamenco in that the color of the sea is mysterious and magic.

Often deep blue, other times emerald green at the mercy of light and wind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, June 2001

 Dear Lau!

Much surprised to hear from Dani of your illness in bed. Really anxious to know how you are now in the evening. Could this letter cheer you up!  This morning I read a book about Gustave Dore, a 19c Spanish painter facinated by gypsy and their dances. And furthermore I was impressed by a phrase on flamenco as follows: 

'In flamenco the Apollonian principles of strictness of form and tempered loftness seem to have taken a back seat to the Dionysian element of a state of intoxication in which pain becomes pleasure.'

 

It reminds me of  Oscar kokashaka, a modern painter of 19c , who said only the person who experiences an emotional state of being intoxicated can tastes inflaming of life."         

 

Hoping to see lau soon ,

healthier and happier than ever .

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, July, 2001

Dear Lau!
buenos dias.

I am here at Central Library in the downtown to email you

with  a  book ' basic spanish' put by my side,

thinking that without understanding Spanish language

I can't get closer to the Andalusian Gypsy mind and Flamenco.

 

Our first meeting of yesterday at your studio was inspiring to me!

It let the horizon of my literary view getting farther and wider..

Admiring the deep blue sky of Portland,

Gohk

 

 

 

 

Portland, July ,2001

Dear Lau!
Good.

Willl be there at your studio at 7:30 on thursday.
with the words , sweet and bitter, of Garcia Lorca

in my heart as below: 

 

 Deep song....is truly deep, deeper than all the
wells and ocean of the world....It comes from the
first sob and the first kiss.

 

See you,

Gohk

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

Hi Gohk,

Thursday is fine. I am in class from 5:30-8:30. 

See you soon! 

Lau

 

 Portland, July 2001

 Dear Lau!
Good morning.

I go on reading a flamenco book,

making an imaginative comparision

between flamenco cante with the Italian song.

In flamenco cante, a flamenco says , 'whatever has
black sound has duende', adding that duende,

the exposure of one's soul, its misery and suffering, love and hate,

is a power which climbs up inside the performer

'from the soles of the feet',

It seems to me that the deep song of flamenco

is a product of the earth full of tortured emotion.

According to him, the earth symbolizes the desert terrain

where nomads or gypsy bohemians are wandering,

the merciless land full of sun-burned rocks of black color,

ceaselessly testing human soul to the extreme situation.

On this harsh land can only the soul who has passed the severe test.

get the voice or posture of the flamenco art.

In contrast, the Italian song seems to be a
result from the sun-shining bright sea of the
Mediterranean with an unexplainable power to allure
human soul. Nobody can resist the sign of the sea

alluring us to get free of the triviality of our conventional lives.

So the Italian song is regarded as an irresistible sign from beyond the sealine.
Pavarotti, the famous Italian singer wiil be a good example for it.
When I hear him singing I always sense the remote sea smell and wind.

 

Thinking of you, 

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

 Dear Lau

 I  Will be there at your studio today at 5:30 pm.

In the morning I read 'Flamenco' editored by Claus schreiner,

in which the two lines below was catching my eyes:

'cultural universality of the flamenco art'.

'Flamenco , in its awesome spontaneity, is in him who can suffer from the world and feel within him- like the dawn- and irresistible urge to cry out.'

 

Dreaming a bailaora dancing solea',

whose splayed fingers trace curling arabesque!

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

Hi Gohk,

I am thirsty and exhausted now. I had many classes today with children and with adults. I love to see children experience flamenco, something that is so far from our culture. And also I feel as if we were all gypsies from Spain!  I hope that you will come to class soon again.  Your words are always so inspiring-- how I wish I had more time to write, but I suppose that I am grateful to be able to express myself through flamenco so many hours every day.  

Un abrazo fuerte y hasta pronto!

Lau

 

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

Dear Lau!

Como esta?
Through Federico Garcia Lorca

I come to get closer to the Flamenco art.

The poet says a word profound in meaning,

that the dark inspiration of flamenco art comes

from the depth of the unconscious.

 

According to the poet, this daemonic lure ranked much higher

than the 'muse or angel', intellectual and spiritual form of
art with their ordered accessible beauty.

 

In my mind the poet is compared to a sculptor who cut
a rump of raw marble to the art of sculpture.

Please pass my 'gracias' to the lady student

whom I met at your last lesson on Tuesday,

who advised me to read Garcia Lorca's poem.

See you.
Gohk

  

 

 

 

 

 

 Portland, July 2001

Hi, Lau.

The tail left in my hand of a salamander of poetic inspiration,

with the head and body of which slipped away

into the marsh of Hilsbourgh,

is as below:

  'Standing by the Willamitte'

Looking at the Willamette river running

through under Steel Bridge,
under Morrison Bridge,
and Hawthorne Bridge
at sunset
I walk and walk side by side

with the streaming of the river of my mind
turning into dark grey.

My eyes follows a mirage on the river
of a dancing figure
with a lamp on in a hand.

more abstract
more remote

Didn't you say this to a painter

standing before his easel
on the opposite bank of Hawthorne Bridge ?

Put your inner landscape,
the light and shadow of flamenco,
the poem of Goarcia Lorca

and your tears

in the more abstract space
in the more solitary silence
in order for them to be crystalized into dews.

They are now
too closer before your eyes.

 

more abstract
more remote
  
The mirage goes on saying so
at sunset

on the river
running deep and quiet
turning into dark grey.

 

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

Dear Gohk,

Thank you for your message,

which always brings an wonderful imagination in my head and warms my heart.

I hope to feel better soon and look forward to seeing you!

Abrazos,

 Lau

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, Aug, 2001

Dear Lau

 un abrazo fuerte y hasta pronto!

I sense a sort of sweetness at the word 'abrazo'

in the above  line,

right? What does it mean?

Gohk

 

 

 

Portland, Aug. 2001

Hi Gohk! 

Yes, it means  "a hug" and "see you soon!"   

 Ok, then... un abrazo y hasta man~ana!

Lau

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland Aug. 2001 

An Yeung!

( a Korean greeting meaning 'how are you?' ),

The voice, deep and remote, of Nino de
almaden, cantaor today reminded me of the image of 'a
woman of Venice', a sculpture in bronze made by
Alberto Giacometti, a French sculptor.
You can see the image, too remote to be worldly,

in the book 'Modern and Primitive Art', which
I will be  with at your studio Tomorrow around 7:30.

I have loved the image of ' A woman of Venice',
which awaked me to a sense of an irresistible yearning

for the unworldly remoteness.

Were I be a bailaor! Or were I be a cantaor!
I would express such a remoteness, such
immense solitudes  through my body,through my voice.

 

Thinking of you,

Gohk

 

 

 

Portland, Aug. 2001

Hi, Gohk !

Long day to me in Seattle. 

The singer will work on some ideas this week and

will let me know what she thinks soon! 

Thank you again!

 

Mil abrazos,

lau

2. Morning Dews

 

The period through the 1970s to 1980s in South Korea under the dictatorship of the military government was a time of darkness and turmoil to the youthful mind. During this period the youth of Korea would express their feeling of gloom, oppression and indignation by singing this song as follows:

 

    'Morning dews'

seeing the long night out
forming on every leaf of grasses,
prettier than the pearl,
oh, the twinkling morning dews !

when my sorrow in my mind
is being made flesh
drop by drop
like the morning dew is,

I climb a mound in the morning
and learn to smile a little smile.

With the sun up right
on the grave
flaming red and fierce
the midday's suffocating heat
is to me a bitter ordeal

Now I will go forward
to the harsh wildness
all the sorrows cleared off.
Now I will go forward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, July, 2001

Dear Lau:
buenos dias
 The healthy are inclined to envy the convalescent
with their face turning remarkablly more beautiful than before.

For the pain of illness let them have purer eyes.

I am imagining that you would now startle in front of the mirror

at the smile, unexpectedly quieter and more brilliant in your face.

Please enjoy your dawn of convalescence !

See you
Gohk
     

 

Portland, July ,2001

Hi Gohk,

I am feeling much better now after much rest and medication!  I had many classes today with children and with adults-- I love to see children experience flamenco, something that is so far from our culture, but loved just the same as if we were all gypsies from Spain!   I hope that you will come to class soon again.  Your words are always so inspiring-- how I wish I had more time to write, but I suppose that I am grateful to be able to express myself through flamenco so many hours every day.  

Un abrazo fuerte y hasta pronto!

Lau

 

 

 

 

Portland, July  2001

 Lau!

In relation with my idea emailed to you yesterday,
I am eager to know whether the song Morning Dews

can be arranged for the guitar and lau's dancing.

Is it possible for the song to be included in
the repertoire of your Sept.15 performance?

This will be a surprisingly unexpected suggestion to you.

I don't want this suggestion to be burdensome to Lau.

Please forget it, if so. Just think it is no more than

a daydreaming of an idle traveller.

But he believes that this could be a great chance.
Most Koreans are ignorant of flamenco,

so they may be indifferent to flamenco, even more to Lau, a bailaora.

However, if the song were to be danced on the flamenco stage,

the situation would be turned.

You and flamenco would be an important news source.

 

Then every Korean at the sight of you dancing the song

would come to be interested in flamenco.

I wish that this suggestion would not bother Lau. 
Gohk

 

 

Portland, July 2001

Hi Gohk! 

 Tomorrow I drive to Seattle to dance

with the others who will perform in September. 

I will ask them what they think!    

Would you sing or would the flamenco singer sing? 

Nice to see you, as always. 

 Un abrazo,

 Lau

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

 Dear Lau

Great!

 Which one, do you think, will be more attracting? Sung by Flamenco singer in Spanish or by myself in Korean?  Or sung by singer and next I follow him(or her)? Oh, I could sing it (though I am not a singer) to Lau's dancing! It would be the most surprising .

 This evening I contacted by phone an editorial writer of  The Korea Times in LA, to discuss on your Aire. I asked him to send a reporter on that day here to cover up your dancing to Morning Dews, saying it would be a creative fusion of two different types of cultures-Spanish culture and Korean one !

 

And the copy of the song's musical score will be available within the end of July. Now It is one month and half before your Aire performance,

 

heart-fluttered with excitement and getting elated

un abrazo!

Gohk

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

Hi Gohk: 

 Here is the reply from the singer.  She can either sing it to the same tune as you, or she can adapt the words to the tune of the flamenco form Soleares.  She would like to know more about the origins and history of the song, as you will see below.  Hope you are well and see you soon! 

Un abrazo muy fuerte! 

Lau

 

<<< to Lau from Rub:

I've been listening to the song, and I've translated it into Spanish.  I think that the Korean words must be more compact than either the English or the Spanish, as the lines to the song appear short for the syllabication I would need in Spanish.  The song sounds almost western in it's tonalities--almost like a hymn.  It is very heroic.  I would like to know more about the origins of the song and its lyrics.  Below is my translation:

Viendo pasar la larga noche
Formandose en cada hoja de hierba
Mas bonita que perla ninguna
O rocio brillante la la manana.

Cuando mi pena se forma en lagrimas
Gota a gota, como el rocio
Voy trepando la colina de la manana
Y voy aprendiendo a sonreir un poquito.

Con el sol arriba
Encima de la sepultura
Rojo y feroz, en sus llamas
El calor sofocante del mediodia
Es para mi un amargo calvario

Ahora tengo que seguir adelante
a aquel desierto duro
Despejado de penas
Ahora sigo adelante.

Perhaps I could sing through the melody twice, with the same number of words!  Or, I could adapt it to a soleares.....>>>

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

Anyeung, Lau!
 

Flamenco artists are said to have a gift of improvisation for it.

Pls advise Rub to follow her own imagination.
Sure. She is right in that the tune of the song sounds western .Because it was composed by a Korean intellectual familiar to western culture, who lived in the 1970s under the revolutionary atmosphere against the military dictatorship.

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, July 2001

Dear Lau

Anyeung!
In relation with the origin of the song,

I think it much helpful for you as well as Rub to read another poem of resistance
written at the unhappy period to the Korean youths, the raw translation of which

you see below.

<<<'as pure and pretty as the petals of a begonia'
  - before the spirit of the deceased boys-

On the main street
from the NansungDong policestand

toward the City Hall
or
on the main street
from the NamsungDong policestand

toward NorthMasan policestand,
did you see ......the scattered blooddrops
as pure and pretty as the petals of a begonia
on March 15, 1960

Did you see......the place which the countless bullets have
gone past to through your eardrum under cover of darkness,
on the main street
from the NamsungDong policestand

toward the City Hall
or
On the main street
from the NamsungDong police stand

toward the NorthMasan policestand
the raging billows of outcrying
on the flow,
connected and cut off,
did you see .....their boyish looks
as pure and pretty as the petals of a begonia >>>
     
At dawn 
Gohk

 

Portland, Aug. 2001

Dear Bl

  Re Morning Dews to be a flamenco piece of Aire.
One day in a letter emailed to Lau I suggested "How about

singing and dancing the Morning Dews in flamenco
to the guitar?". She already has known the
music well, for she was moved to tears ,

listening the song sung by me.

That's all!

Gohk

3. Leaving Portland

 

wenn einer fortgeht , muss er den Hu

mit den Muscheln, die er sommer u''ber

gesammelt hat , ins Meer werfen

und fahren mit wehendem Haar,

.............

............

Herz, Anker ud Kreuz,

und fahren mit wehenden Haar

Dann wird er wiederkommen.

Wann?

Fag nicht

 

when you leave,

you must throw your hat

full of shells collected in Summer

into the sea,

and leave

flapping your hairs in the wind.

........

then

is it when?

you will to come back ,

don't ask about it.  

 

 One or 2 days before I left Portland the lines of a poem flashed across my mind lingering on. The lines were a part of the poem titled 'Lieder von einer Insel' of  Bachmann. a German poet. It was in the evening after sunset . Then I was sensing Autumn creeping closer to me sitting slantly on the red-bricked stairs of the Pioneer Square ,empty and calm. Nobody except me was there. Disappeared youths puffing up with their naked upper bodies. Out of sight were children jumping with pigeons and their mother, too.

 

What invoked the lines kept somewhere in me?  Perhaps or not, the circle-shaped square, empty and calm, resembling at a glance an amphitheatre in the old city state of Greece might be the cause of it. Just prior to it was my heart  beating quick at the idea of the Aire performance scheduled held the day after tomorrow. Sitting alone there I was picturing in my head myself on the stage as a special guest to introduce Morning Dews .What is more, my mind even grew restless at the very message from Lau which I had read just before: <Hi, Gohk! We will have a rehearsal on Friday, September 14 in the afternoon so that you can meet the singer and work with her on Morning Dews. Abrazos! Lau>

 

 At the Pioneer Square in spite if myself I felt heart-rended to see the void square! Strangely enough, for a moment the sight of the scenery began to drive me to get more and more conscious of the situation in advance where in a few days I  would be. As you know, in a couple of days or so , with the curtain down of the Aire performance, I would have to leave Portland. It was at the silent moment that the lines of the poem occurred to me. But I didnt know why.  The very deep emptiness ,it was only inferred, awoke me to a sense of  what I ought to be? Possibly what the unusual moment made me aware of the vanity of a situation which  I , intoxicated, was caught in . 

 

 Wake up and return to what you are..

What you believe now you are is not you in real,

but an illusion. It's just a shadow of what you wish to be. 

You, Gohk!

'You are not a duke well known to the world,

nor a hero of sturdy build .'

Haven't you heard of broad-shouldered American Indian youths,

with two eyes stable in horizontal balance,

and with strong skin hardened by the atmosphere

above the river running through the prairie? 

 

You are not such a brave warrior.

You are just a nameless traveller

pursuing a dream to write small poetic proses

which at most you could be good at. And nothing more.

Then, how would such a  humble man have a desire

heart to heart to come still closer to a bailaora,

one of the most beloved in Portland! 

 

Free yourself from such a daydream.

Throw it into the Willamette

with the pebbles of reminiscence in summer

in the pocket of the mind!

 

 Leaving Portland, I was thinking of the poem of Bachmann several times. And I got it lingering on in the mouth. So did I at the moment when I was boarding a Greyhound bound for Atlanta 5 or 6 days distant by bus, And at the moment of not only passing through the black Steel Bridge across the Willamette river, but also  running along the straight line of the road with the city left behind , I even recited two lines of the poem.

 

'Take off and throw away into the river

your hat full of shells collected in summer,

and leave fluttering your hairs'.

  

With Spocane of Washinton behind, when we are running  out of the State, forests and river began to get less and more obscure in the distance to just  a couple of small clods of painting pigment. When we were running into an expanse of Savannah plain ,with great rocks and sand field here and there in it, it began to get dark. Soon the view out through the window of the running bus were beginning to be buried under the black darkness. And together with it the sweet blackberries at the opposite bank of the Willamette, the bright smiles of Lau , and the guitar rhythm of Aire performance were running one by one much farther away into the darkness.

 

 Greyhound stopped for a short time in the city of Billing , North Dacoda and began to gain in speed  under the cover of deeper darkness. It was silent in the bus. Half or so of the seats was left vacant and  passengers seemed to keep their mouths shut. Not a sound in the exception of the soft engine noise the running bus was making. I felt rather comfortable at the engine sound as if listening to Bach's unaccompanied Cello sonata. The sound was never  noisy to me. It even called back to my mind the intoxicating things of the past summer in Portland.

 

  In the darkness did come in and out of sight  the dim images of  the downtown of Portland, which I visited twice one in 1999 and the other in 2001 ,but in either case left it saying nothing at the end of the summer. The city was rich in the sunlight with the  deep blue sky high above, but the shadow of it  was thick and dark. Bathtubes in the rooms of Days Inn hotel were ivory-white in contrast to the gloomy eyes of  Mexican female part-time employees working for the hotel with no visa , The applauses of spectators at  the Aire concert were bright with big laughters compared with  the dark and unstable faces of the alcoholic homeless standing in a line at a charity party held in Washington Park. In a sense, the city seemed to be impressive in that it showed a sharp contrast of light and the shadow in the center of the downtown.

 

 On reflection, when I was approaching the Portland aboard Greyhound it was the exotic top of Amtrek station reminding a bell tower of  the traditional Islamic church that caught my eyes through the bus window at the first time. Then the sky above was brilliant with no indications of cloud. Conversely inside of Joyce hostel was dimly-lighted the timeworn corridor and gloomy was the ｅxpressionless of the counter clerk. And the Willamette enjoyed the bright sunlights pouring down on the surface of the river in contrast to the dark image of the steel-built Hawthorn bridge over it.

 

 Now I throw my eyes out on the lights of a remote city leaning my head against the window. The lines of Bachmann comes again lingering on in my mouth shut : you have to throw your hat  full of the shells you collected throughout the summer . What on earth is the city of Portland, which I happened to spend summer twice? No more for it. Next time will the place be the Time Square of New York which is familiar to me, or the Mediterranean sea side ? No. the Vical lake in Siberia will be possibly the next point!

 

But how can I forget  the pebbles of reminsinces collected in Portland: "you are inspiring!", the fascinating words Lau whispered to me,  the remote, bitter cry of the cante, the impressive contrast of the brightness and the dark grey of the downtown, the sea-blue eyes of a homeless youth playing an impromptu melody by his guitar ? 

 

  I love words more than anything else. I am apt so easily to lose myself to certain passages. For example, such are these:

' the handkerchief of nostalgia in eternity  flupping toward the deep blue sea',

' a walking shadow muttering to himself words with no verbal meaning'.

'the first grey of dawn'.

'the beauty of impermanence',

'autumn sunlights descending diagonally between the boughs of trees by the forest path.'

 

And I will never forget  the right moment when a simple line went home to my heart:  'an art is ardent confession.' It was Rouault's, a French painter. The line of his came to be a surprisingly profound guide to me. Because it hit me at the moment I got stuck in a series of questions: 'Could I write a poetic prose?, ' how can I get a sort of  writing I would be satisfied with?', 'what style of writing could  I  be good at?' It was really fortunate for me to meet this guide. Probably without the encounter with the simple and pure words, I couldn't have a mind to do write this!'

 

 Before making my second trip to Portland, last early spring , I got a advice of Rilke, a German poet: 'in order to get a line of poem, you should meet many people, cities and many books. More than anything else, you could recall to your mind the nights of twinkling stars you met on the road.  And Furthermore, you will have to do writing at the end of everything'. Until now I do  love the poet and a line of a poetic ｅxpression which I read somewhere in a book in Korean of his: ' the blue flame of the soul'. 

To me the writing is in a sense like the work of sculpture. Sculptors cutting the raw material of marble have a burning desire to have their dreams of images in their minds visualized into a form of art . For this they would often have to go on a long trip to an exotic land and after returning home with the raw mass on their backs keep themselves isolated in their caves, solitary and bitter, to be absorbed in wrestling with it in the poetic sense of touch.

 

That's it. To me, as to a sculptor. It is essential for me to go on journey to get the raw material of contemplations for the work of writing. No work of writing without the raw stone of it for it. For me to be on the road is in a sense to grub up the raw material buried somewhere in  light  and shadow on the  road.

 

On the unfamiliar road of prairies of North Dacoda or Minesota my eyes are again turned to the night view outside. The sky above the horizon side is coming down this way to me. Greyhound is dashing more deeply into the darkness. My eyes averted a little upward, I see the numerous stars, listening to them whisper secretly between them.

 

Wow! beautiful! All of a sudden I am reminded of 'a night with stars twinkling', the painting of Van gogh. In spite of myself, the painting gives me a feeling of my soul souring into the cluster of the stars there twinkling ,as if they were whispering to me that at the end of  this journey with stars no more in sight, be ready to greet the first grey dawn of writing coming neare