James Tyson, Theatre Programmer at Chapter Arts Centre in UK, talks about Geumhyung Jeong.

Puppetry doesn’t often find a place in experimental theatre festivals, but Jeong Geum-Hyung’s duet with a vacuum cleaner is a reminder of how fantastical, magical and disturbing a form it can be …. Jeong’s work addresses issues of control and manipulation and of animation and death—exactly the realm of puppetry, but Jeong’s brilliant performance is a reminder of how exciting it can be. – Theron Schmidt, Real Time, Australia 

  7 Ways by Geumhyung Jeong

In November 2009, Geumhyung Jeong will make her second visit to Wales, UK to present her latest works,  “7 Ways” and “Oil Pressure Vibrator” at Chapter Arts Centre and other venues across the country. Her visit in October 2007, at Chapter’s Experimentica festival was for many a revelation. Perhaps one is looking to find exciting visual theatre, or brilliantly virtuosic dance or a remarkable story that transcends language. I first came across Geumhyung’s performance through the Seoul Marginal Theatre Festival, an annual festival that brings together experimental theatre, dance and performance groups from Korea each autumn. This festival I think has dedicatedly drawn its own path, making site-specific performances, creating forums for “audience-critics” and other initiatives that bring together and propel many of the elements that can develop culture, both in bringing forward and enabling the work of artists, as well as engaging that work in a stimulating and inspiring journey with its audience. Geumhyung had come to the Seoul Marginal Theatre Festival through an earlier work based on the Pygmalion story and her work draws on both puppetry, dance and stagecraft with a remarkable purpose and vision realised through her own person, as both puppeteer, puppet, performer and choreographer. And refined to what I first saw as a nine minute performance that achieved the wonder of making one think, “is it possible someone can do that?” I realise I don’t often find myself so interested in these kinds of questions, but here, somehow…

I admire very much the plays “A Journey” by Youngsun Yoon and “Don’t be Shocked” by Kunhyung Park. Together these and Geumhyung Jeong’s work present a rich portrait of contemporary Korea that has much feeling, humanity and wisdom.  The diaspora of Korean people living in countries across the world has also contributed much to the development of cultures internationally from the USA to Germany, Australia and France. The legacies of Nam June Paik, Isang Yun, as well as the remarkable films of Kim Ki-Duk and Hong Sang-Soo spur audiences and current generations of artists across Europe, from Romania to the UK. Whether it is being initiated from a small basement art studio such as in the Mullae International Arts Festival or developed as a world hub for culture, as in Gwangju, the complexities of living as artists and sharing and exchanging ideas in a world culture, continues to define much of what a far wider public will experience as contemporary art. Artists such as Geumhyung Jeong, the choreographer Sun-Young Lim, the dancer Yuri Han remind me of what is inspiring in putting together programmes of contemporary art. So let’s continue this work, to challenge and provoke, to find spaces and bring people together, to allow ourselves to ask questions, perhaps to realise those images that would not otherwise be possible.

James Tyson is Theatre Programmer at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
He is also a writer, producer and director of several plays including “Untitled”, “Long Days of Summer”, “Farther and Farther On” (with Theatre Replacement, Canada) and “Conversation Pieces / La Guerra Mexicana”.