II. Bailaora and writer
1. You are inspiring!
One evening in a Chinese restaurant in Portland
I happened to sit at table side by side with a family-
man and his wife together with their daughter.
There the foodstuff on the table served for me induced
them to share with me an unexpectedly pleasant
conversation on flamenco. It was her father who began
to say first to me.
"What dish is that ?
It looks delicious. Um... smells good".
I replied, " This? boiled duck,It tastes good.",
recommending to order it. And I asked the daughter,
who said that she studied abroad in Spain and
has come home to have a weekend with her parents,
"Then you study Spanish?"
: Yes. Spanish literature. You love Spanish ?
: I just a few words- ole', baile or cante. but I want to
began study it to come closer to flamenco.
: You mean flamenco? Really?
: Sure. 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.
: By the way, how beautiful is the Mediterranean ?
What color has the sea ?
So to speak, deep blue or emerald green ,pure,
as that of your eyes?
:(blinking her pure eyes)
The sea is fascinating beyond description.
Once to my eyes it happened to resemble Flamenco
in that the color of the sea is mysterious and visionary,
sometimes 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!
Yesterday evening was wonderful to me.I happened to talk
with a student studying in Spain about flamenco and
the Mediterrian I was yearning to see .She was in love of
flamenco and want to dance it. This morning I read a book
about Gustave Dore, a 19c Spanish painter facinated
by gypsy and their dances. 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 you to get healthier and happier than ever .
Gohk
Portland, July, 2001
Dear Lau!buenos dias
I am here at Central Library to email you
with a book of ' basic spanish' put by my side,
thinking that my ignorance of Spanish anguage prevents me
from getting closer to the Andalusian Gypsy mind and Flamenco.
Then yesterday our meeting was inspiring.
It let me get the horizon of my literary view wider and farther !
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 this poetic ｅxpression of flamenco ,
sweet and bitter,in my heart :
"Deep song....is truly deep, deeper
than all the wells and oceans 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.
Now I am enjoying an imaginative comparision
between deep flamenco cante and
the beautifully melodic Italian song.
In flamenco cante, an artist said in a flamenco book,
'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 'from the soles of the feet'
inside the performer.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 singer
wiil be a good example for it. Whenever I hear him
singing ,I 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 a book, 'Flamenco', editored by
Claus schreiner, In which two lines below caught my eyes:
1) 'cultural universality of the flamenco art'.
2) 'Flamenco , in its awesome spontaneity, is in him
who can suffer from the world and feel within him
- like the dawning- an irresistible urge to cry out.'
Imagining 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
July 2001
Dear Lau!
Como esta?
Through Federico Garcia Lorca I come to get closer
to Flamenco. The poet says a word profound in meaning,
that the dark inspiration of the 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
in a moment the poet is compared to a sculptor
who is cuting a rump of raw marble for the artwork
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 poems.
See you.Gohk
Hi, Lau.In my hand was left just the long tail part of a salamander
of a poetic vision, with its head and body slipped away
into the marsh you know in Hilsbourgh,is as below: 'Standing by the Willamitte'Looking at the Willamette river running
through under Steel Bridge,under Morrison Bridge,and Hawthorne Bridgeat sunsetI walk and walk side by side
with the streaming of the river of my mindturning into dark grey.My eyes follows a mirage on the riverof a dancing figurewith a lamp on in a hand.more abstractmore 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
into more abstract thing,and the more solitary silence,in order for them to be crystalized into dews.
They are now too closer before your eyes.
more abstractmore remoteThe mirage goes on saying soat sunset
on the riverrunning deep and quiet turning into dark grey.
Gohk
Portland, July 2001
Dear Gohk,
Thank you for your message in verse,
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
Aug, 2001
Dear Lau
un abrazo fuerte y hasta pronto!
I sense a sort of sweetness at the word ' un abrazo'
in the above line. Is it 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
Aug.2001
Hi, Lau,
The voice, deep and remote, of Nino de Almaden
today reminded me of the image of 'a woman of Venice',
a work of sculpture in bronze made by Alberto Giacometti,
French sculptor. You can see the image, too remote to be worldly,
in the book 'Modern and Primitive Art', with which I will be there
at your studio Tomorrow around 7:30 pm.
I have loved the image of ' A woman of Venice',
as it awakes 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 body and voice!
Gohk
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
11. Bailaora and writer
2. Morning Dew
Through the period between the 1970's and the 1980's
when South Korea was put under the rule of a military regime.
During this hard time of darkness and turmoil ,
youths would express their feeling ofoppression and
resist against the dictatorial govement by singing Morning Dew
in chorus
'Morning dew'
Seeing the long night outforming twinkling morning dew
prettier than pearl
on every blade of grasses.
when the sorrow in my mindis forming kernels of itself
drop by droplike morning dew ,I climb the mound in the morning and learn to smile a little smile.With the sun up right on the grave flaming red and fiercethe midday's suffocating heat is to me a bitter ordealNow I go forward to the harsh wildnessall the sorrows cleared off.Now I go forward.
Portland, July, 2001
Dear Lau:buenos dias.Charls Lamb once insisted that the healthy are inclined
to envy the convalescent with the latter's faces
turning remarkablly more beautiful than before.
The essayist said it is because the pain of illness
let them have their eyes getting purer .
I imagine that you would now startle in front of the mirror
at your smiling face, quieter and more brilliant .
Be happy meeting your dawn of convalescence !See youGohk
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.
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
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 inthe repertoire of your Sept.15 performance?
This will be a surprisingly unexpected suggestion to you.
In a sense, I don't want this suggestion to be burdensome
to Lau. Please forget it, if possibly so. And think that
it is no more than just a daydream of an idle traveller.
Then he believes that this could be a great chance.
Now most Koreans are ignorant of flamenco,
so they may be indifferent to flamenco and even more to Lau,
a bailaora. However, if the song of Morning Dew were to be
danced on the flamenco stage, the situation would be changed.
You and flamenco would be an important news source.
To be sure, at the sight of you dancing the song most Korean
audiencewould come to be interested in flamenco.
I wish that this suggestion would not bother Lau. Gohk
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
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 .
In this regard this evening contacting by phone
an editorial writer of the branch office of Korea Times
in LA to inform of ' Aire 'performance, I asked him ,
"how about sending a reporter on that day here
to cover up your dancing to Morning Dews. I advised him
that it would be a creative fusion of two different types
of cultures, that is,Spanish culture and Korean one !
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 performance,
Heart-fluttered with excitement and getting elated
un abrazo!
Gohk
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 Rubi:
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 nocheFormandose en cada hoja de hierbaMas bonita que perla ningunaO rocio brillante la la manana.Cuando mi pena se forma en lagrimasGota a gota, como el rocioVoy trepando la colina de la mananaY voy aprendiendo a sonreir un poquito.Con el sol arribaEncima de la sepulturaRojo y feroz, en sus llamasEl calor sofocante del mediodiaEs para mi un amargo calvarioAhora tengo que seguir adelantea aquel desierto duroDespejado de penasAhora sigo adelante.Perhaps I could sing through the melody twice,
with the same number of words!
Or, I could adapt it to a soleares.....>>>
July 2001
Hi, 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. For it was composed
by a Korean musician and intellectual familiar to western culture.
See you
Gohk
July 2001
Dear Lau
In relation with the origin of the song, I think that
it much helpful for you as well as Rub to read another
Korean poem of resistance in another period, that is,
20 years earlier than that of Morning Dew.
You can see the raw translation of it 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 Halloron the main streetfrom the NamsungDong policestand
toward NorthMasan policestand,did you see ......the scattered blooddropsas pure and pretty as the petals of a begoniaon March 15, 1960Did you see......the place which the countless bullets havegone past to through your eardrum under cover of darkness, on the main streetfrom the NamsungDong policestand
toward the City Hallor on the main streetfrom 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 looksas pure and pretty as the petals of a begonia >>> At dawn Gohk
Portland, Aug. 2001
Dear Tom
Re Morning Dew to be a flamenco piece of Aire.
Fyi ,I positively suggested to Lau in a email sent to her,"How about dancing Morning Dew to the rhythm of flamenco guitar?".
And she and Rub accepted it. She already has known the music well,
for she was moved to tears by the song the other day.
Gohk
11. bailaora and writer
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.
A couple of 2 days before I left Portland , these lines of a poem
flashed across my mind lingering on. These were a part of it
titled 'Lieder von einer Insel' of Bachmann. a German poet.
It was in the evening after sunset whenI was sensing Autumn
creeping closer to me sitting slantly on the red-bricked stairs
of Pioneer Square ,empty and calm. Nobody except me
was there. Just before the moment they were puffing up
with the upper part of their their bodies naked. Out of sight
were children and their mothers jumping with pigeons
Then what invoked the lines of the poem kept deep in me?
Perhaps or not, the circle-shaped square, empty and calm,
at a glance resembling an amphitheatre in the old city state of Greece
might be the cause of it. Just prior to the moment did I feel my heart
beating quick, thinking of the Aire performance to be 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 Dew ,
a Korean pop song .What is more, my mind even grew restless
at the very message below 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 Dew.
Abrazos! Lau>
Sitting alone on a stair of the Pioneer Square I felt heart-rended
to see square void and quiet ! Strangely enough, Before the
sudden voidness of the square I was driven to get conscious of
a state of my mind in advance that I would be expected
to be in soon or later. As you know, In a few days afterthe day
of the Aire performance ,I would have to leave Portland. Probably
it was at the square's voidness deep silence of the moment
that the lines of the poem quoted above occurred to me.
But I didnt know exactly why. Anyway it must be the silence
and voidness around the space that awakened me to a sense
of what I have to do soon after the performance:
to leave Portland !
You, Gohk! 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 are not a duke well known to the world,
nor a hero of sturdy build .'
Haven't you heard about the broad-shouldered
American Indian youths running the prairie,
with two eyes stable in horizontal balance,
and with strong skin hardened
by the harsh atmosphere of the wilderness ?
Hey,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 in this city !
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.
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 from the departure by bus,
And I even mummered two lines ,below,of the poem to myself
at the moment of, not only passing through the Steel Bridge
across the Willamette river, but also running along the road ,
with the city left behind ,
'Take off and throw away into the river
your hat full of shells collected in summer,
and leave with your hairs fluttering.'.
Passing by the signpost naming Spocane area ,
Greyhound was gaining in speed .Forests and river began
to get more and more obscure in the distance
just like a couple of small clods of painting pigment.
About the time when the bus was running into an expanse
of plains with great rocks and sand field here and there ,
it began to get dark. The scenery out through the window
of the running bus came to be buried into the darkness.
Befor long, so did blackberries on the bank of the Willamette,
Lau's bright smiles ,and the fascinating stage of 'Aire '
flickering in my mind eyes one after another.
Greyhound stopped for a short time in the bus station 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
were left vacant and the passengers seemed to keep their mouths
shut. Not a sound in the exception of the soft engine noise.
I felt rather comfortable at the engine sound as if listening to an
unaccompanied Cello sonata. To me the sound was never noisy .
It even called back to my mind the intoxicating things of Portland
in the summer-the aroma coffee ,brilliant sound of guitar,
Lau dancing solea on the stage,etc.
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 Gohk happeed to leave Portland
at the end of the summer. The light of the sun was rich in the city
with the pure blue sky high above, but the shadow of the city
was deep and dark. Bathtubes of Days Inn hotel in the downtown
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
in happiness, compared with the dark and unstable faces
of the drunken 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 downtown.
On reflection, when I was approaching Portland aboard the bus
it was the exotic top of Amtrek station reminding a bell tower of
the traditional Islamic church that caught my eyes at the first time.
Then the sky above was brilliant with no indications of cloud.
As contrasted with it, the inside of Joyce hostel was dimly-lighted
,the worn-out corridor gloomy , and the face of the counter
clerk face to face with me was ｅxpressionless. In addition,
standing By the Willamette I was deeply impressed by the sharp
contrast between the river enjoying the bright sunlights pouring
down on its surface and the dark image of the steel-built
Hawthorn bridge over it .
In a sense, the city seemed to be impressive
in that the downtown showed a sharp contrast
of light and the shadow.
With my head leaning against the window of the running bus,
I throw my eyes out on the lights of a remote city .
At the moment ,the lines of Bachmann comes back again
to my mind:
you have to throw your hat
full of the shells you collected throughout the summer .
For what on earth is it Portland
where I happened to spend summer twice?
No more for the city.
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 the summer in Portland as below ?
"you are inspiring!", the fascinating words
that Lau whispered ,
the remote, bitter cry of the cante,
light and shadow of the city. ?
the sea-blue eyes of a homeless youth
playing an impromptu melody by his guitar etc.
As for me, I love words themselves more than anything else.
I am apt so easily to lose myself to poetic passages.
For example, such are these:
'......... the handkerchief of eternal nostalgia
waving toward the deep blue sea',
' ......a walking shadow muttering to himself words
with no verbal meaning',
'the first grey of dawn', or 'the beauty of impermanence',
'......autumn sunlights descending diagonally
between the boughs of trees by the forest path.'
You know, I will never forget the right moment
when a simple line was catching my eyes:
'an art is ardent confession.'
It was Rouault's, a French painter.
Once the line of the painter's came to be a guide for my writing.
For 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?',
or 'what style of writing could I be good at?'
It was really fortunate for me to meet this guide.
Probably without the simple and pure words as a guide,
I couldn't have a mind to do write this!'
And before making my second trip to Portland, last early spring ,
I kept in mind an advice of Rilke, a German poet,
the rough meaning of whicch is below:
'in order to get a line of poem,
you should meet many people,
many cities and many books.
More than anything else,
you could recall to your mind
the nights of twinkling stars you met on the road.
Until now I do love the poet and a line of words
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 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 to visualize the images
in their minds into forms of art.
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.
Averting my eyes a little upward, I see the numerous stars,
listening to them whisper secretly between them. All of a sudden
I am reminded of 'a night with stars twinkling', the painting of Van gogh.
'Wow!! unbelievable.' In spite of myself I muttered to 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 near
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