Over the years, Korean music and Korean dramas have been reaching out beyond Korean shores. Increasingly, the non-verbal Korean shows like ‘Nanta’, ‘Jump’ and ‘Breakout’ have also been gaining fans worldwide. They are easy to understand (no need to know Korean), entertaining and most of all, they include some uniquely Korean elements.
I sat down with the cast of bibap some weeks ago and had a little chat. So just how is ‘bibap’ different from the other shows like ‘Nanta’ and ‘Jump’?
‘bibap’ takes on different aspects of performance arts like singing, b boys dancing, martial arts and beat boxing and mix them well together into one harmonising show, just like the national dish- bibimbap declares Hong Sang Jin, the 35 years old ‘Red Chef’ in the show. Each of the cast member has many years of training in their specialised field to bring about an unique experience to the show- like Jeon Min Ji, the ‘Cute Chef’ who majored in Voice Music and Son Noon, the 25 years old ‘Rookie Chef’ who was second place in the 2006 UK B-boy championship.
‘bibap’ was originally a 30 minutes publicity performance but became an long show for the famous Edinburg Fetsival. It won rave reviews and the rest, they say, are history. In the first 2 years, the cast spent up to 10 hours daily honing their act but they have become so familiar with each other and the show that they only need about 2 hours now to practice before the actual performance.
Their familiarity and closeness with each other shows during the interview when meembers joked that the girls were selected during audition because they were pretty even though they didn’t have a good voice.
‘bibap’, just like ‘Nanta’ revolves around food but unlike’the latter, actual food is prepared on stage for audience tasting. Curious about this, I asked if they were naturally good cooks themselves (they would make a great husbandif they could cook so well ^^). To may surprise, I was informed that there is no actual cooking on stage. The actions are real- ie, they have to cut, chop, knead the dough etc but they don’t actually cook the dishes on stage. I guess it would be a rather major logistics nightmare if actual fire was used. However, because they can’t actually cook and yet, they have to go through the real actions of food preparations, it is actually harder to perform. In the show, 4 different dishes are prepared in the competition between the 2 teams- sushi, pizza, Chinese noodle and finally, bibimbap. It would definitely be interesting to see how they prepare these dishes without actually cooking them.
So what other dishes would these cooking ‘experts’ recommend and could be considered a national dish? The answers came fast and furious-
bulgogi
japchae
ginseng chicken
Mmmm… they are all delicious Korean dishes. I especially love japcahe. Perhaps the director would consider doing an act based on japchae? hehe!
With the Korean Wave hotting up all over the world, I was curious to know if this had helped to raise the awareness in the non-verbal acts like ‘bibap’. This resulted in a 5 minutes deep animated discussion amoongst the members. I was told the Korean Wave is such a hot topic that it is discussed and studied in earnest amongst the scholars (yes, this term was used)) in Korea. Wow!
Actually, ‘Nanta’, which is the first of such shows, started in 1999, way before even the Korean Wave showed it’s flag. Even then, it was attracting tourists due to the lack of language barrier as well as the unqiue Korean music and dance aspects. But it is without a doubt that the wildly popular K Pop and K Dramas have helped to increase the interest and awareness of these shows. And I’m glad because, these shows add another dimension and insight to Korean culture and entertainment.
‘bibap’ will be showing at the The Esplanade Theatre from 30th March to 1st April. It’s only for 3 days so do book your tickets now from sistic.
If you think Korean entertainment consists of only K pop and cute boy bands and synchronised dancing, then you should definitely watch ‘bibap’. I’m certainly looking forward to it. Take a peep at what’s in store..
So are you going?
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