Floating Bottle Project Website 플로팅 보틀 프로젝트 웹사이트
Introduction of the project 프로젝트 소개
- How Floating Bottle Project group met
In 2014, I met Natsuko Tezuka in the box theater for rehearsing the performance invited by festival Tokyo. Later she invited me twice to Nora festival in Fukuoka. We discussed old rituals in Japan and Korea. Also, we experienced the ritual, a mixture of Shinto and Buddhism, in Oita. We were very glad to meet each other as artists from different countries both sharing our interest in old rituals. Coincidently, in 2015, one of Korean artist staying in a Kwangju Asian Theater asked me to meet one artist from Sri Lanka because she has so much common artistic interest with me. That was how I met Venuri Perera. We talked a lot about Korean traditional dance and the healing ritual ceremony of Sri Lanka. Later I found, Venuri and Natsuko did Achieve project together in Singapore. When I visited Natsuko’s second Nora festival, she showed that she wants to make a collaboration work by three of us.
Natsuko, Venuri, and I met all together in Sri Lanka in 2016 June. We visited temples, learned their meditation practice, participated in private rituals, and interview the people specialized in Sri Lanka ritual. Surprisingly, we found so many similarities in the rituals of each other’s culture. We promised that we would work with this project for the next three years. Since then, we are sharing some resources and discussions online.
Process 과정
2017. Yokohama ST Spot
Natsuko Tezuka (Fukuoka/Berlin)converted her piece entitled “Anatomical Experiment-6” into an archive box. Then, Venuri Perera (Columbo) created a new performance, based on this archive box, which was “Blessing Passport Ceremony”. This exchange between Tezuka and Perera has transferred to me (Yeong Ran Suh, Jinju/Copenhagen) and I created a new participatory performance “Enquete”. All 3 works were introduced in Yokohama.
We shared each other’s knowledge about rituals and traditions in the first year of collaboration. When you research rituals and traditions, in the end, you face the destruction of tradition or invention of tradition by Colonization/Nationalism/Modernization. When we showed each other’s creation motivated by the Archive Box in 2017, we found that we all questioning the current system of politics, nation, and society that have been built up from the colonial era. From there, we question together “what is western modernization in each country? And How it controls our body?”
2018
In the second year of collaboration in 2018, We shared the timetable of political changes in each country from the colonial era and shared unequal international contract which actively started the western modernization. We discussed the character of modernization and its result. From this process, we created an “experiment” and premiered in the Kyoto experiment.
2019, Seoul Dance Center
After the ‘experiment’ in Kyoto, Natsuko shared feedback from the Japanese audience.
To held the ‘experiment’ in Seoul, We discussed more the Korean experience of western modernization (including experience of Japanese colonial), its contextual feature, and the character of Korean audience. We held workshops with Korean participants and decided what we should change in the ‘experiment’ and what we should develop appropriate for the Korean context.
1st day of workshop
2nd day of workshop
3rd day of workshop
Showcase_Experiment
Experiment 실험_ participatory performance with workshop & feedback.
What does western modernization mean for us?
There are a variety of processes and experiences of western modernization in the world. However, there are similarities and distinct features of the change brought about by the western encounter. We catch out those features, such as, demarcation and uniformity, which was implemented as western value to all around the world. It reinvented our culture and controls the individual mind and body since western modernization.
How does it control our bodies?
We suggest the audience to participate in our experiment to recognize the control in their body.
During and after the experiment, maybe we can find another answer to “What is Western modernity for my country and for my self?” And “How can we or I release out the control?”
I wrote a review about the project for Greenroom. 서영란이 쓴 작업 다시보기 리뷰는 Greenroom 그린룸에서 읽으실 수 있습니다.
yeongransuh.com 