Performance Poster Design by Salon de Factory
Introduction
How does ‘Shamanism’ exist in ‘Modern Korean life’?
To find out this, Yeong Ran Suh visited village shamanic ceremonies in Seoul. Old villagers’ story about their life and belief was strongly connected with Korean histories such as the Colonial era, Korean War and civilization. Korean shamanism was ostracized by the development of urbanization, science and Christianity. It was wandering around the boundary of belief and religion. This work mixed and matched the story of Korean shamanic belief from the auto-ethnographic research.
Artist Statement
In 2011, I conducted auto-ethnographic research about Seoul village shamanism interviewing elderly people who keep up village shamanic rituals. As a result, I choreographed a lecture performance embodying the elderly voices, imitating Korean shamans’ practices and juxtaposing shamanism and Christianity.
“Yeong Ran Suh expanded her interest in the relationship between form (rituals, practices) and content to the relationship between village shamanism and the modernization of the village…As ancient religions and beliefs are forgotten during modernization, the ‘village’ is also disappearing in the modern city. Now, the village shamanism and the episodes related to it are ideological instructions of the ‘faith for blessing’ and ‘farming society overlapped in the city’, virtual reality, and stuffed nostalgia…Suh choreographs and presents dances based on her research on village shamanism, customs, the research process, and gestures intertwined with them.”
(From the introduction written by Namjun Paik Art Center)
yeongransuh.com 
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