A personal flamenco journey 6

                 

                                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 dews ,

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