flamenco journey 4

V. A poem can be pure dance

 

 

1. A pure desire

 

 

 The mind becomes pure when it desires for a thing only.

So the mind can be pure by getting indifferent to many other things.

Multifarious desires make the mind impure.

-kierkegaard-

 

 

 

                               I.

                                      

 

  Pure Desire, The Boundless Imagination! Last summer this line of the logo of 2007 Keochang International Festival of Theatre happened to catch my eyes. I was scheduled to participate in a seminar there held by it as a flamenco commentator. The logo which I first saw  was in a placard hanged on the edifice of a hotel located in the entrance of the Kift. on the very day I came to meet it again which was on the kift's periodicals and newspaper at the restaurant there. Since then I have been captivated by the logo: Pure desire, the boundless imagination.

 

  For a long time I have put in spite of myself Reiner Rilke. a German poet, in my heart who alluded to me to write. once in my youth I read with admiration an advise the poet wrote in a letter-formed essay, as mentioned before, saying that you should recollect the nights and the stars on the road. To the advice I added such a murmuring of my own to myself as follows : please let a person in love live with you inside your heart, for you to write letters to her whenever you want to. Never let  her go! It hit me 2 years ago on my way back from the trip to Spain . And I carried out my own to myself during the trans-Siberian journey of Russia the next year.

 

Then it was the logo of the Kift festival that was thought to fan further my desire to began this writing of my personal journey of flamenco. The question to myself right after the enounter with it was: a pure desire for what?  What doed it mean to me?

 

  This writing is completely different in form and character from the formal essay, such as a drama critic's professional criticism or an actor's professional essay. It ,as a personal essay, depends less on airtight reasoning than on my personal style or personality. Saying again, it is just an informal essay. So, it has an open form and a drive toward candor and self-disclosure, full of  freedom from stiffness and affectation. So, this writing is something like a personal diary of a tramp.

 

 If you were to follow me through my writing, probably you would imagine the twinkling stars, now gone away into nothing, in the sky which I saw on the roads of foreign lands. Furthermore, you would easily sense a flamenco-holic hidden between the lines of the writing and the coffee smell of the Pioneer Square cafe in the center of Portland . And also you would view with me the winding lanes on the shrub-covered slopes of Andalusia seen through windows of the running bus or catch with curiosity the exotic flamenco cante rising up from the foot of the remote Sacramento hill of Granada.

 

  In this writing everything comes in sight and disappears before my mind's eyes in defiance of the physical order of passing time. It is said that the physical time runs just forward into the future consisting of a system which never goes in reverse, However,you would see in this essay an unreal atmosphere where every experience of a traveller runs free of time order. as if they were on stage for dramas.  

  If you paid attention, you would catch in the structure of  this work  a hint which Annie Dillard gives in her book,'the writing Life':

write summer story in winter, and winter story in summer.

Describe Debulin , as James Joice did, on the desk in Paris.

 

My hands and eyes were faithful to the advice from the beginning of the work in relation with the construction of it. In another words, the traveller's first encounter with Keochang Kift came to be written, not in the very spot of the scene, but in the triste bed of hostels in Tokyo or in Portland in deep Autumn . on the other hand, it is during his stay as a drama viewer in Susungdae in summer that he was driven to write the flamenco fever and the sea of forests of the remote Siberian frozen lands where he had had roamed before. 

 

It is in late autumn, chill and wet, in a  hostel in Portland that  the mages of the  kift festival floated before my mind's eye. The summer landscape of Soosungdae, scenes of dramas he watched squeezed among other spectators, the singing cicadas on the ceiling of Chungsongdang came close right before him. The kift festival itself during his stay on the spot was no more than so-so. It is not in Kift festival while he was staying there but in Portland several months after the festival that he came to catch the meaningfulness of Kift in his real love of it.

 

The finale party of the theare festival was great! At that time I was sitting alone on the floor of Chongsong Dang in the deep darkness and, giving my ears to the rhythmic sounds of drum and guitar. I know well the drummers .Then who is the guitarist? a new comer as a member of drams group from Qubeck, Canada ?Then walking out toward the party, I mummer to myself as below: 

 

The time is in repleteness,

its stream sweet. 

 Sergio, a Spainish and David, a German, both of youths

playing drums is stirring up  a night of their farewell  undulating.

The fascinating guitar melody,

brillant displays of fireworks in the sky,

Every actor and actress share embraces

with each other pledging to meet again next year.

and on their hands of Playwriters and directors are

Soju glasses full of something wanting they feel in ,

These with stars above pouring down

are making a night landscape of the festival.

Now it's time to go out to the party of youths.

I'll adjust myself ,too, to the irresistible calling of the druming.

 

On the other hand, It was at Chungsongdang during the Kift fesival  that I, for exemple,  visioned the images of  Dani dancing flamenco with whom he enjoyed the queer 2-month cohabitation in an apartment in Portland , of Laure dancing Morning Dews in Masan, my hometown, of Sacramonte hill in Granada of Spain where the dark song of flamenco was heard, and of the train running through the snow-covered Siberia, with Samovar tea boiling on it, etc.

 

2.

 

 The eye without any affectionate and instuition can not sense the beauty of landscapes which it sees. The facts and actual objects in the nature could  be turned into artistically beautiful landscapes in front of the eye with affectionateness and poetic imagination toward them. In a meaning 'facts become art through affection, which unifies then and lifts them to a higher plane of reality.' Sure, so it did in my case.

 

A pure desire? unstained or innocent ? What does it  mean on earth?' how is the word 'pure' harmonized side by side with 'desire'? In our minds there are several forms and levels of desire. Desire, in its lower form, is a subtle form of greed, and constant yearning. But it is said that desire can be so subtle that we may not even realize that we are under its control. Lower desire, in any form, is a degradation of higher aspiration, similar to how lust is a degradation of passion.

 

Less is often more! Unclutter your life of desires and you will be freer! It seems as if to say to a traveller, whose desire is to write, like me. Question again, your desire is to write? If so, the best way to be a writer is to get simple and indifferent to any other thing. one step further, keep yourselves 'far from home and friends, separated from our language, snatched from our props and stays, deprived of our masks...'? Did Baudraire give us an advise similar to it, too, who said like this: Focus close attention on one subject, even in bathroom, or in a prostitute quarter, with your mine concentrated on one subject.!

Then what in the world do they want to express by the two words ? To me  the two words  seems  contrdictory to each other...Probably does it means to me personally an irresistible longing to fly beyond the sealine to an exotic land of imagination.  At any rate the words stirred me up enough  to feel heart-beating as if at the seaside facing the horizon. Right! 'A pure desire' is to mean an irresistible passion to break from the yoke of the routine day life in a imagination, exotic and poetic. then it is unsuitable to the life of sensation which requires more and more. It can exists only in the life of spirits which require less and less.

 

Monet was a very different traveler from Renoir. He had remarkably little curiosity about new cities or cultures for the sake of novelty and was no tourist at all. His drive to discover new and diverse sources of motifs was for one purpose only: to paint. As for me I traveled to Portland to see Laure dancing Morning Dews in flamenco. I flied to Andalusia to sense what flamenco is, to hear Siguiria sung and to feel Guitarists playing Granada. but I had no desire to be a bailaor, a giuitarist or flamencologist.

 

I roamed up to Montmartre and about Montparnasse in Paris with a strong curiosity on the Bohemian life of the modern painters. I was interested in Montmartre, which was like an old hill village 'with its lilac, twisting alleys, white cottage', where the painter like Maurice Utrillo I love lived as a a drunken Bohemian. And also I was fascinated by Montparnasse where Amadeo Modigliani, vagabond, intellectual gypsy painter who was a legendary figure of cafe society there. But I never wished to be a painter.

 

But as for me,I just wished to discover new sources of motifs for my writing or get my view wider and farther for it. I wished to get a way of writing appropriate for myself. It has been my desire- a pure desire! Reasonably I paid dear for it. I have had a lot lost- the social recognition weakened, some faithful friendships cut , and even my jobs indispensible for my family was difficult to get. But I have successfully resisted all obstalces. and I still love my present life that it is made a rule to write little by lttle every day.

 

Once during my stay at Kift Festival I took as my resting place a Korean traditional house with impressively beautiful roof for the summer, located side by side with the Kift office building. on the wooden floor of it at the side of the back wall there were two small door open, through which I could see unfortunately nothing but a green hill outside, which acts as a kind of high fence to block my view .

 

In other words, the floor, fresh- aired and quiet, commanded no prospect at all because of the high green hill out standing at the side of the back door. Then strangely enough, the atmosphere of the floor where my body eyes are made useless was likely to  lead  my mind's eyes to the boundless imagination by blocking me from any sensational scenery!

 

 'Appealing workplaces are to be avoided.' Avoid a room commanding a good prospect'  A room with fascinating view far and wide could dry up one's imagination . you had better remember an apisode that there was a poet who dismounted with his eyes in tear from Boobuykru , a pavilion by the river Daedong, because he could get only two line of poem for the beautiful scenery ,followed by no more. Poets are to be on their guard against views fascinating their physical eyes.

 

 

 

3.

 

At the first glance I couldn't resist the lure of the Kift's catchword of the year 2007- a pure desire, the boundless imagination. But Keochang holding the Kift festival every year in summer was not so easy a resort for me to approach. In order to be accepted as an invited I had passed through two tests beforehand, one of which I took, you know, was at ChungsongDang with the green hill blocking my view.

 

First of all the traditional Korean-styled house was fascinating but soon turned to be disappointing because the floor of it commanded no prospect. A green hill  stood as a wall of obstacle to test me. In a meaning, I had to go through psychological hardships due to the green hill  before I was welcomed there as a favorable guest. Then, I had to face the other test, more hard and bitter, two or three days after.

 

 When I got in a chophouse in the market of the town in order to shelter from the sudden shower, I happened to take a seat there face to face with a middle-age man. I sat down on the stool in order to get a better view outside in the rain. I had a desire to gaze at the scene in the narrow alley with the shower falling downing on roofs of the cottage. Into the bargain, another hope to recall a guitar-accompanied fandango cante which had stopped me before a cafe in Granada. The very seat  in front of the middle-aged man was thought to be the best place to enjoy the view of the atmosphere outside.  

 

 'It is raining heavily but softly, isn't it?' the visitor said to him as a meaning of asking for his consent on my sitting in front of him though there were other vacant seats. He passed me his okay sign with some curiosity about me. There were several guests in the hall sharing talks over soju or tobacco. It was late in the afternoon with much rain falling softly. So our talks began.

 

 'These days how many people living alone there are !', he murmured to himself and asked me looking into my eyes, ' where are you living? ' 'I am a stranger here in Keochang.', I replied unaware what did his murmuring to himself mean. ' I was born at Habchun not far from here. I am working for Volvo in Taegu as a technical expert', he replied to me taking an identification card out of his pocket to let me understand how important a technical experts he is. 

 

'Then how long have you been alone? You seem to have suffered a lot of hardships through the life. Your wrinkled face reveals it. Then Do you have no family to take care of you?', then he asked me outspokenly.

 

' Pardon?  oh,.... I see. Of course it would be a lie to say that I have suffered no serious hardships in my life' ( Do I look that wretched?)

 

' Aren't you lonesome living alone?'

 

'Sorry? oh...'( Do I look that desolate?)

 

'You know, these days the number of aged men living alone is getting more and more. Eh....It seems that you are over seventies, aren't you?  right?

 

 'What ? Ah..........( Does my face look that miserable?)'

 

 The dialogue in the market chophouse was a shock to me. My counterpart's remark stung me as if a knife with a keen edge. I got confused for a while: 'I look so old and shabby? He regarded me as a homeless with no family! Oh, my god! I look so old? my appearance looks that shabby?! But It is not the point that really matters. He must be right! The right thing you have to face up to now is the true point that you have lived completely ignorant of what you really are.' Back to Chungsong Dang that night I got sleepless till late muttering that again to myself .

 

The Kift festival let me go through the two tests before they accepted me as an invited writer and flamenco commentator. The tests was significant though they were embarrassing to me. My 3rd unexpected visit to Portland came after the hard tests. And What is more, The tests helped me to get what I am, naked and real, seen through. In another words, I came to face up to it as it is for myself: a walking shadow murmuring to himself something meaningless in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Writer's 3rd trip to Portland

 

Portland let me, at my first visit to it in 1999, have an encounter with flamenco which was unfamiliar to me. At my second stay of 2001 in Portland with intent to approach it, I happened to get a fortune to meet Lau, a bailaora, with whom I have exchanged emails for 8 years or more. And in 2007 I made my third flight to this city to invite Lau and her flamenco group to the Kift festival of 2008 in Korea, particularly wishing Back to Heaven, a well-known Korean poem, to be danced in Sloea by her. Lau danced Morning Dews twice in flamenco before, so she was thought to be the very bailaora to dance in flamenco the tragic lyricism of the poem. And returning home To Seoul I am arranged to drop at Tokyo. There I will stay a few days to meet another bailaora from Granada with intent to ask her team to join the festival of the next year as a Spanish flamenco performers.

 

1) emails

Masan, south Korea, Aug. 2007

Dearest Lau!
On my visa issued, I would fly to Portland and Tokyo in September, of course, on the condition that you are okay with my visit then. Now I have 2 important assignments given by the Kift side. one of them is to have my impression on 2007 Kift written in English on their magazine until the end of this year mainly for the foreign readers interested in the Kift festival.

And the other, more significant to you, is that the next year flamenco performances are planned to be on the stage on the occasion of the Kift festival. We will have to share ideas for it between you and me. In this relation, I want to visit your studio in advance to see you dancing in solea 1 or 2 Korean poems which you are familiar with. one of them is ,as you know, Back to Heaven.

A flamenco
Gohk

 

 

Masan, Sept. 2007

 Hi, Lau.

Below is in relation with my September trip the rough concept of the expected flamenco performances on the stage of 2008 Kift.

'below'

Three flamenco groups are to be separately on the stage 3 nights. one of them is expected to be from Spain. the other is supposed to be a flamenco-Salpury group in which you are to be dancing 2 Korean poems in flamenco accompanied by a guitarist, preferably Mark and Korean dancers in Korean traditional costume dancing Salpury and Sungmu, the Korean traditional dances

On my way back home after our meeting in Portland, I am going to have a short time of stay in Tokyo, in order to contact Spanish flamenco groups. As you know ,in Tokyo there are several Spanish groups. For your information, In Tokyo I am expected to meet Juana, Spainish bailaora, who is to visit Tokyo in October to have concert at the Flamenco Synjuku there. I love her dancing because I saw her team performing 2 times at a tableau in Granada. I hope to suggest to her that her team come to Korea next year in Summer

Which of the Spainish group will be invited, I dont know now. Probably expenditure will be an important factor for it. It would reasonably be much more economical for Kift to invite Spanish group in Tokyo than in Spain, because they don't have to pay fleight charges.

 

Of course this is now a rough concept only in my mind. Before flying to Portland, I will have a meeting to discuss with the Kift side on these. The staff in charge of perforamce said to me that that flamenco performance should be as one of two imortant new projects for the 2008 kift.

Any question?

 

love

Gohk---

 

 

 

Masan, Sept. 2007

Hi, lau:
My flight to Portland was booked. I am to be in USA from October 7 to 13. I hope to stay in Portland 3 days of 8th, 9th, 10th of October to see you, if it is not unconvenient for you. The next year hopely will see flamenco danced as an important event for the Kift festival. For at my introduction of flamenco dance given there this summer the Kift staffs came to be sure that flamenco is to be a  potential attraction for Kift from 2008 on. In particular lots of audience there at the presentation was attracted by an invited Korean flamenco dancer.

love
Gohk

 

 

Portland, Oct. 2007

Dear Gohk:

This is wonderful news! 

May I please have your information so
that I can meet you at the airport? 

Would you like to stay with us in our home?
I am so excited!!!

Abrazos,
Lau

 

Masan, Oct. 2007

Dearest Lau:

Really happy at your considerateness! But please don't come out at the airport.
It would be better to meet you free over coffee at Pioneer Square

around at noon on 8th of Oct. You know that I, as a tramp, would be more comfortable to stay in the hostel where nobody knows me .

 

And please never fail to pass To Mark my ardent hope to see and hear him accompanying you.

Love
Gohk

 

 

 

Portland, Oct. 2007

Dearest Gohk:

 I am very excited to see you early next week.  Also, we will be having you as a guest at the Flamenco studio on Wednesday evening so that you can watch a rehearsal and party. Please call me when you are safely in Portland.

 Love,

 Lau

 

 

 

Masan, Oct. 2007

Hi, Lau

Just a day prior to departure!

The weather man said that it will be rainy and windy tomorrow here before the take off time . I am a little worried. How excited I would be at the flamenco party in your studio! Will call you at Oct.7th in the afternoon.

Thinking of you,

Gohk

 

 

Granada, Spain, June. 2007

Hello Gohk,

 I´m Juana. you came to see my flamenco group

in Granada last year and gave us your contact.

I am the dancer. We are still performing in Granada

at the Huerto del Loro, a flamenco cave if you remember.

 

We are also performing abroad , we had  a show

in Naples and we are going to Ireland in June.
We were wondering if you have any contacts
in the South Korea or in the States .

We would like to perform more abroad ,

so you have any ideas please contact us.

I hope all goes well with your projects.

I attach all our info.
                             
Yours Sincerely,
Juana

 

 

Masan, South Korea, Aug. 2007

Hello Juana:

This is Gohk, interested in you and your group as ever.

Mako, manager of Ol'e in Tokyo informed me that you are scheduled to have concert at El Flamenco there in October. I think it would be a very good chance for me to see you dancing again, this time in Tokyo much nearer to me.

As you know, I saw your performances twice in Granada and above all things, you speak not only Spanish but also English, which language would help us to share fully and clearly each other's head and mind.

Now as a request of the Kift Festival in South Korea, I have a plan to help them to add flamenco performances to their 2008 Festival held in July-August next year. Now I have a question - Shall I meet you and your members again at Tokyo in September? For your information, in relation with it I am scheduled to visit to Portland, USA. So if you are okay, on returning home I would like to drop in Tokyo at the time of your stay there.

 

Waiting for your reply,
Gohk

 

 

Granada, Aug., 2007

Dear Gohk

We are to be at Tokyo around the middle of October, when at any time it will be okay. Our performance will be available 3 nights in a week until at the end of the month. In El flamenco which has a smalll stage, we keep the same program of our performance you saw at Granada ?

 

For the further negotiation in detail It would be better for you to contact with our manager, who will email you soon.

 

Sincerely yours

Juana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) Interview

 

 A couple of months after the Kift festival was over, I visited Portland in USA for the 3rd time. During my stay at Portland I happened to get an interview with Ina, a reporter of Oregonian Daily at Lau's studio in the downtown, with Laure also present there for me. 

 

This time the main purpose of my trip to the 2 cities was in relation with the Kift 2008 program in which they have a plan to invite flamenco artists for their next year festival. Lau is present now for me and the reporter was a friend of the flamenco dancer's ,so I could have a comfortable interview with the reporter as if I were enjoying a private talk with  friends. After the formal interview with photos taken was finished, we three continued to enjoy our free dialogues off the record.

 

The following is a part of the off-recorded free dialogue. The Ina with a yearning for the exotic Asian cultures was much more interested in the Susungdae landscape with the old Korean-styled pavilion than the theatre festival itself. 

 

 

In:  Hi, Gohk, Lau said You have been acquainted with this city?

 

Lau: This is the 3rd time for you to vist Portland, isn't it, Gohk?

 

Gh: right. Portland is still quiet and peaceful as it used to be 7 years before. from the airport through trimax railway to the downtown, the landscape in silence of  the wide green fields and  in comfort is the same. in the exception of one.

 

In: what's that ?

 

Gh: the sky. In late Autumn it was covered with thick clouds. The deep blue sky without a point of cloud was one of the most impressive here. In Korea people can enjoy such enchanting sky just a short time inf Autumn.

 

In; Laurena said you would come here this time with a particular purpose in relation with flamenco.

 

Gh: right in half. Well. It probably would  be right to say that the my purpose is in relation with flmenco and Laurena. More concretely, Half on business, the other half is kind of.... a desire to pass 'hello' to her.. 8 years or so before, I happened to see a male flamenco cantaor who was singings at the Pearl Festival of this city. It was my first encounter with flamenco. And It was the next year that I met Laurena in this same city. From then on flamenco and her have always been kept in my mind.

 

 La: Joon wants me to fly over to Korea on the occasion of the 2008 Kift Festival.

 

In: For flamenco performances?

 

Gh: Right. Flamenco performances are  to be added aa a new project to the main program for the 2008 kift fesital. Flamenco was suggested as a new subject for the festival at the seminar heldt the last summer .

 

In: Great! Is it a festival in Seoul?

 

Gh: No. at a small community area  called Keochang located far from seoul.  

 

In:  Such a big festival is held in  not a big city, but in just a kind of small county!  

 

La: oH, Ina, remember Abignon of France. The town is worldwidely known for the outdoor theatre festival.

 

Gh: Next year Keochang will open the curtain of the19th kift, Keochang international festival of theatre. They will be at the golden age.Now Kift is the most famous outdoor theatre festival in Korea.

 

La: As you know,Korean culture doesn't yet seem to be well known outside in the world. 2 years ago,on my first visit to Korean 2 years ago to have flamenco performance there in Joon's hometown, I was surprised to see Busan,a giant city  more modern and lively than Atlanta. Compared with it.  Portland looks so small a city. to me the Korean traditional dance of Salfuri was most impressive. so beautiful in particular was The Korean traditional costume.  

 

In: Really? Very interesting! ,would you tell me about Kift again more specific, Gohk? 

 

Gh: Oh. this public relations magazine  is of some help to you .Won't you have it?

 

In: one more Gohk. on your way back home, you visit Tokyo to meet another Bailora from Spain?

 

Gh; Yes. At El Flamenco In Tokyo. Juana and her members from Granada I hope to invite her team to the 2008 Kift festival.

 

In: You love her dance?

 

Gh: As a gypsy dancer, Juana tends to concentrate more on forceful rhythms than graceful movement. I think that as a gypsy dancer, she keeps well the essence of flamenco-ecstatic, abstract downward introvert.

 

 

 

 

3 Let Back to Heaven be Solea'-danced!

                      

 

 Were 'Back to Heaven' expressed on flamenco baile! This was inspired by the below words of a Spanish  bailaora ,Evs Yerbueneva: a poem can be pure dance.I think a poet dreams of seeing his verse sketched out on a human body and a bailaor dreams of seeing his dancing in a poem.

 

 Solea or Sigyuria, a form of baile was, it was hard to explain of it, reminded of by the speedy flow of the  first phrase of the poem ,' I shall return to heaven' . Solea is the ｅxpression inside of an individual of his or( her) sorrow and solitude.  The meaning hidden between the lines of the poem recalled the solea, a form of flamenco cante.

 

As for flamenco, it has long been the practice to speak of flamanco artists- a term rarely used when discussing folk music.... The el arte flamenco- these words describe an art form that is fed from two sources: joy and sorrow. Soul and body must be in perfect harmony: intellegence governs the voice ,heart convey s the contents.  Here I would like to add one more: the downwardness, one of the main characteristics of flamenco baile. It is related with The zapateado, that is, the creation of rhythms by drumming on the ground with the feet. It is worth pointing out how important it is.

 

The dances uses the whole body , but it is largely generated by these drummed rhythm. To create its patterns, the dancers makes variations in the quality and intensity of sound by using the heel ,the whole foot, the sole and the the point of the toe. All these movements tend toward a stamping downward. By the same token there are no leaps, no upward movements of any sort. The downwardness of the dance also shows in the eyes, which are usually 'directed downward even when the face turns up.'

 

The idea that 'Back to Heaven can be deep baile of flamenco' was inspired by the two particular performances held in 2005 at Masan and Haman, in which Morning Dews, as you know, was  sketched out  2 times through the body of Lau, a flamenco bailaora on the stage.

 

 

I shall return to heaven

  hand in hand with dews

  evaporated at the touch of the dawn light

 

  I shall return to heaven

  together with  the evening glow light

  at the cloud's calling sign to me in the play at the hill foot

 

  I shall return to heaven

  when the picknic is over on this earth

  and go there to say  it  was beautiful

 

The above poem of Back to Heaven has of course a couple of musics, which I don't love because they are, I think, unable to express the poet's spirit. In case of Morning Dews, I personally preferred the music to the poem itself. So I gave the poet only in order for her to follow her emotion in solea free of any existing music for the poem.

 

This poem reminded me of ' a child' in the book of <Also sprach Zarathustra> written by Friedrich Nietzsche. While in my youth The song of Morning Dew brought up the image of the invincible paws of 'a lion' in the book, in the case of the poem Back to Heaven, it was a child's blue soul that I was reminded of when I read it. Nietzsche once have said of thrice changes of the mind.

 

 The wise man advised we should learn camels first. Everybody knows that the camel symbolizes endurance. What we have to learn next ,he said, is the lion's spirit: the beast is the symbol of invincible courage to say 'no' against unholy duties . And he went on, 'lastly learn to be a child'. What he meant by it was that in order to keep creative instinct we have to learn the pure oblivion and affirmation. Perhaps when the poetic inspiration hit the poet Chun, Sang Byung, he must have been a child whose soul was blue.

 

  Sensing a stoic far-sighted view of the unworldly poet in Back to Heaven, lucid and crystal, I wished it to be expressed through the deep baile of Lau who had danced twice Morning Dews twice before the Korean views here in Korea. I am sure that Lau as a bailaora would express well the agony and sorrow hidden in the mind of the poet through her body. In addition she has had a good understanding of the Korean lyricism.

 

 SB Chun, the poet of Back to Heaven, prisoned and put to torture under the military dictatorship through 1970s, was ill-fated in the latter half of his life with the deep scar never to be recovered from. In a sense, that while Morning Dews symbolized a torch of resistance, Back to Heaven is still with us as the child.

 

  I don't want the soul of the poet to return to the heaven. I don't want the poet to be allowed to fly to the high sky, too far off and too remote from the world we live. At this junction, The downwardness of flamenco baile solo ,it seemed, could help us to keep the poet alive by our side as ever.

 

I wish the poet to live with us down in this earth, not up in heaven, as the twinkling morning dews, the evening glow of hymn, and the creative soul of the child, getting our mind's eyes ,easy to be dull, purified . For the deep baile of flamenco, downward and introvert, is a deep song of this earth itself, not one of that heaven .

 

And one thing should never be forgotten to add: please have the baile dance for Back to Heaven accompanied for sure by the guitar only, the soul of flamenco.

 

The cry

of the guitar begins.

The crystals of dawn

shatter.

The wail

of the guitar begins.

It is useless to silence it.

It is impossible

to silence it.

It cries monotonously

like water cries,

like wind cries

over frozon peaks.

It is impossible

to silence it.

It bemoans

distant things.

It is the hot Southern sand

craving white camellias.

It is an arrow without destination,

the afternoon without tomorrow.

 

Gh