Workshop "Beautiful Children"

“HAE -THE THEATER SPACE OF THE OPPRESSED”

“ The theater space of the oppressed-Hae” is trying to resolve the oppressions, which exist outside and inside of us. Oppression means the problems that all of us have, the barriers or scars that prevent us from becoming the subject of our own lives. ‘Hae’ is pursuing to reveal such obstacles through various artistic expressions in a theatrical context and to overcome it. The belief that everybody has the potential to solve one’s own problem and the power to heal oneself is the starting point of ‘Hae’.
‘ Hae’ is a group of people, who believe the revolutionary characteristic of theater and the power of healing of it. Through the mirror of theater, people can see the reflection of oneself and the reality. With the help of the small world in theater, people can create a new picture of oneself and reality. Through theater, people can realize that in fact reality is nothing more than another theater.
‘ Hae’ is a group of people who believe that theater originally belongs to everybody. Theater is not something, which is only allowed to people who have a beautiful voice and body. It is not something, which is only given to a playwright who confesses profound wisdom in a beautiful language. It is not something which belongs to a grand theater, where in a short moment an illusion of a different world is created. Theater belongs to everybody and if there are people who have a story and if there are people who want to listen to it, it can be appreciated by everyone and everywhere.
‘ Hae’ since its founding in 1997, has been meeting diverse people including teenagers in and out of schools, college students, workers, homeless people, women, teachers, activists in NGO’s clergies from different religions. It has started based on the ‘theater of the oppressed” of Augusto Boal and is trying to branch to more diverse theater/art methodologies.

Workshop "Beautiful Children"

PROGRAMS

“ The theater journey to discover ourselves” can be divided into short term and long term workshops. Short term workshops are classified by the duration of the program into ‘ a glimpse of the journey’, ‘ the rainbow of desire’, ‘ image theater’, ‘discussions in theater’. Proper number of participant is 15-20 people for each program.

< Short Term Workshops>
A Glimpse of the Journey (3-4 hours)
This program has been provided for institutions such as LG, Bizwoman, YMCA, YWCA, the Parent’s Association for Democratic Education, Telephone for Women, Cheong Kang University for Cultural Industry, Women’s Research Institute of Seong Shin University, Yongin Women’s University.
The first hour is spent on playing, through which an atmosphere is built where the participants can trust and feel each other. The group expresses a theme about which they share feelings through the theater of images. In this process, participants can regard their problems from different perspectives and can understand themselves and other people better, which makes the learning process more effective.

The Rainbow of Desire (1-2 days)
The Rainbow of Desire starts with warming ups through which the body and mind can relax and where people get used to theatrical expressions. ‘The Rainbow of Desire” is a method where we discover the oppressions in our minds, which hinder us from pursuing our goals and which make relationships with other people difficult. This process is not an analysis of personal psyche but rather a study on social oppression, which turns into internal fear and desire of human minds.
The participants are enabled to perceive and harmonize different emotions and thoughts, which are in conflict in their minds. ‘Hae’ is holding these workshops three times a year.
“ It was a shock to me to discover ourselves, who are revealing only the exaggerated selves rather than the true selves. I felt so free on the other hand. ‘The Rainbow of Desire” was beautiful because it was a path which leads to myself.”(Yim Jeong Mi, a participant)

Image Theater (2-3 days)
This workshop is proper in conditions where it is not possible to do the 4-5 days workshop, but where people want to think about social issues in addition to the ‘rainbow of desire’. In the image workshop, participants try to find the origin of their oppression and to reveal how it affects reality, which helps them to deal with it.
“ It has been difficult in my life to find who I am and where I am. This workshops, however, has given me a chance to think about how I am living and how I should live. It really was a good opportunity for me.” (Seo Jeong Kyu, participant)

Theater Dialogue (4-5 days)
The theater dialogue is added to the ‘rainbow of desire’ and the ‘image theater’. One or two themes out of the several issues that were talked about in the ‘image theater’ are selected and made into short scenes, which is staged in the form of theater dialogue.
In the theater dialogue, participants become the subjects of the performance and objectify the material problems of reality and try to find a solution in it. The purpose of the theater dialogue is to perceive distinctly that changing reality in the process of finding alternatives lies in one’s own hands.
“ It was a unique experience, It was different, fresh and gloomy. I realized that there are so many people in the world and that there are so many people who are different from me. The world is diverse but it is one world after all. I know that I am not the only person who is unhappy and I will try to be stronger. I hope that everybody will become happy. (Lee Sang Hee, participant of the workshop for teachers and students “2001 winter, the school story” )
‘ Hae’ is organizing theater dialogue workshops for teachers and students during vacations.

< Long Term Workshops>
The contents of the long term workshops are the same as the short term workshops but participants meet 1-2 times a week regularly. The workshops can last from several weeks to one year. In most cases, these workshops are finished with a performance.
‘ Hae’ has been doing long term workshops with teenagers, college students, homeless people and currently is working with teenagers in jail, North Korean refugees and youth on the street.
“ I, who at the beginning did not even dare to hold up my head or to speak out, could finish the performance ‘beautiful children’. I am surprised that I could do this. During the past one year, I have come to think that I became a person who is needed somewhere.”
(Participant of “beautiful children 2”)

Theater Youth Discuss

The Launch of the Group

(Monthly Biblical Life, 2000 August/ the world with dreams)
No Ji Hyang, the representative of CTO(Center for the Theater of the Oppressed) founded the center after she participated in the workshop of Augusto Boal in year 1997, where he visited Korea for the International Theater Festival. It was 20 years ago, where she came to know about Boal for the first time, when she was a college student. At that time, however, she did not think that social or political changes can be made through theater. She thought he was regarding theater too much as a tool and not as a goal. After all the years, however, where she met Boal in 1997 her thoughts changed. He had changed. “His area of interest had been expanded to personal and individual dimensions from his initial interest in social, political matters. I felt that he has become to understand human beings more deeply. While doing his workshop, I realized that the human being is what counts most.”
No Ji Hyang, took part in the workshop for ten days , and is deeply impressed by the fact that the 40 people who did not know each other at all before really reveals themselves in a pure state. There was a program where we regarded each other. It was about just regarding the eyes of the others in silence. It was all right when I walked around and looked into the eyes of other people but when it was my turn to stay still and where other people came to look into my eyes. I suddenly felt that an extremely strong energy came up inside of me that I started crying. It was a first experience for her to reveal herself in front of strangers. It was like taking her clothes off. Through this experience she got to know what it is to encounter with people and then she started the group ‘Hae’.

Teacher & Student Workshop/Poster of "Beautiful Children"

Interview with Hyo Won Lee, Member of Hae
(Shisa News 2001/6/17-30. vol. 163, p.62-63)

Hyo Won Lee, whom I met in her old jeans and big T-shirt said that she is most happy when she sees how she herself and other people change through theater.

-How would you introduce the theater group ‘Hae’ briefly?
‘ Hae’ was founded in year 1997. The people who participated in Augusto Boal’s workhop became the founding members. For one year after the workshop, we practiced on our own and then started in high schools. After that we have been focusing on therapeutic theater.

-Why is the name of your group ‘Hae’?
Just as the letter ‘Hae’ means…it means that we resolve the problems of people who are oppressed..and it also means ‘to DO’ something just as the sound ‘hae’ means action in Korean. It has a double meaning.

-What is the biggest difference between Hae and other theater groups?
In normal theater, the audience is just passively looking at the stage. We don’ t think like that. We not only want the feed back between the performers and the audience but we want the audience to lead the performance. Just as everybody can sing, everybody can play theater. Enjoying theater. When put formally, it could be put as the democratization of the theater.

-What is the goal of your group?
To be honest, today theater is really distant from real life. There is no medium, however, as proper as theater, through which a human being can meet another human being directly through the body and mind. Furthermore, people can interact in groups not just in person to person. Theater is the strongest mirror, through which we can reflect ourselves and the community. Our goal is to recover the strength for people who are beaten down by the reality of life.

-What do you think is meaningful in doing what you do?
I am so happy. I like the process where I realize what I want and where I am while I meet other people. I am so happy when I confirm the truth of the other, and when I observe the smallest changes in the other. When I see, for example, how the teenagers I met in jail come out and get a certificate in bread baking, then I think “ I must be living in the right way”.

-What are your plans from now on?
The performance with the youth in jail is planned to be in July. It seems that we have to do more research and study in theater therapy. We are planning to found a ‘theater therapy research institute’. We are also planning to invite specialists from the States and Great Britain and do workshops with them.

Theater Youth Discuss

New Human Dahn, 2000 February, p. 36-39
ARTICLE: You and Me, On Our Way to Subjectivity

Representative of the Theater Space for the Oppressed No Ji Hyang
No Ji Hyang, who has founded the theater space for the oppressed is experimenting in the form of theater dialogue and believes that the world can be changed through theater. What is she ‘resolving’ in ‘Hae’?
It was the same today. People who are carefully concentrating on one movement finally come to tears. The group members, or perfect strangers..the simple movement they do is something they repeat whenever they meet new people, but there was no person until now who passed without crying.
What is making these people’s hearts collapse and makes them cry like children? Or..what is making them laugh like children and disarm them in front of strangers?
No Ji Hyang is the person who has the answer to this question, but she herself just cries while she is looking at these people from a distance.
40 years old, but still looking like youth. She reminds us of a dreaming boy when we look at her small body and short cut hair and listen to her direct voice.
The studio in the basement, where even at 2 o’clock in the afternoon the light has to be turned on, is the place where the theater space ‘Hae’ is located.
She and her group members start their day while they are spreading newspaper on their floor. Water drops from the basement ceiling, even on days where it does not rain. The small space ‘Hae’, where there is no sunshine, has a different atmosphere from other theaterspaces. Not only specializing actors but everybody can do theater here, especially the oppressed…and this must be making the freedom of this space.
“I wanted to make people free through theater. There are so many people around us who don’t know how much captured and oppressed they are. We are trying to help those people to expand themselves and to communicate with others.”
Expanding and meeting with oneself. That task, however, is not easy as it seems. Is it possible to open up the firmly shut hearts through several workshops?
No Ji Hyang, however, does not hesitate but rather believes that the world can be changed and ‘just does it’. The opportunity to meet up with teenagers in jail was also given to her thanks to such attitude of her.
“Who are the people who are materially mostly oppressed in society?” She was thinking and decided to do theater with young people who are in prison. Shortly after, she just called the teenager prison. The simple thought that she wanted to do theater with young prisoners led the teenagers to stage, young people who had never done anything voluntarily before. She talks about those young people, whom she has been meeting for almost one year once a week in the following way.
“At the beginning, they just said that they don’t know whatever they were asked. They would not make eye contact and did not open their heart. Such teenagers, however, started to change. Some times they would come up and give me paper birds, which they folded with paper of 9 notebooks and shyly go away. On other days, they would not leave the place, even after the end of the workshop.
“ The World Can Be Changed Through Theater”
On the 22nd of December, she at last, put a special performance on stage with these young people who are not special at all. Would it be because the young prisoners were performing their own story? The young people seemed to be so alive, much more alive than any other actors. This performance took place in a form of theater dialogue, which took place in the presence of an audience consisting of parents, friends or teachers.
“Dialogue theater’, which is an unknown form to us, is a theater form where the performers and the audience participates in an equal proportion to theatrical reality. On that day, too, there was active audience participation. The life stories of the performers were many times very moving, to which the audience often responded in a touching way.
The older sister of a prisoner sprang on the stage and shouted “stop!” She played the role of his mother and told him stories she could not tell him before. A friend of a prisoner came to the stage to talk to him, because he was not allowed to talk to him in jail. Parents and their children were crying together on stage and teachers and students were reconciling.
“Of course I know that one performance will not change the reality to where the young people have go back to. The fact however, that the prisoners who never have been ‘subjects’ in their life have stood on stage as ‘subjects’ makes a difference. It will become a starting point for them, that they confronted their own problems in theatrical reality and were able to objectify it.”
At the beginning where she started this, there were people who asked her if it was not a too ineffective way of changing the world, when she only works with a limited number of people: but she did not think so. We are living in a capitalistic society where effectiveness is an absolute value but she wanted to ask those people what is truly effective.
The theater experience of the young prisoners did not end with just moving the hearts of the performers. No Ji Hyang, came to know through the confession of prisoners that they mostly regret to have put tattoos on their body and consulted about this with a priest. He introduced a dermatologist to her and the young prisoners are able to erase their tattoos from their bodies, which were like symbols of their dark past.

Ji Hyang herself, however, still cannot be freed from her own oppression, which is put on her by her husband and11 year old son Ye Chol. She has taken him to many of her workshops that he has gained a sharp analytical eye. She still does not feels sad when she thinks about her Son, who has to stay with his grandparents every weekend. She also feels sorry about his husband who has to stay home alone all the weekend because of her, who is not earning any money but only spending all of her money on her theater group.

No Ji Hyang started theater after she watched the theater piece ‘Han Shi Yoen Dae Ki’. She realized that the world can be changed through theater through that piece and became a member of Yeon Woo theatre. In 1997, she took part in the workshop of Augusto Boal and founded the group ‘Hae’ with the people who participated in this workshop.
“This is just the beginning. I want to meet with more people.”
‘You and I. all of us are heroes’
This is the catchphrase, which is written on the poster for the performance of the young prisoners. Her dream is distinct. She wants people who are pushed away from the main stream to become heroes of their lives. She is trying to do it through the solution ‘Hae’.

(translated by Yoona Kang)

Workshop With Songsan Middle School /Workshop "Beuatiful Children"

(When I asked for pictures, Mo mi na explained that 'Hae' normally does not take pictures of their activities for they are very personal experiences for the particpants. The pictures above are the ones which were made public and therefore show only a part about the activities of the group 'Hae')