“What is an individual when they are in a group?” was the question that came to Juhyung Lee when he was caught up in the floods of people in Gwanghwamun Square, epicentre of political and social demonstrations in Seoul. The overall experience is bigger than the sum of its individual parts, highlighting a dynamic created by the interdependency and connections within the group. “But what makes us ‘us’?”
Juhyung Lee starts with one stone and a ball of string, and starts to weave a web of threads that tangle and untangle, wrapping around each other to form a gigantic spider’s web. During the 45-minute show, the audience are invited to get involved in the work using simple actions (winding back up the string to take down the installation) that lead to encounters, glances, movements and interdependency. People have to move around, avoid one another, negotiate the space and find where they fit. Will there be a sense of “us” at the end of it all?
This unusual and emotionally eloquent work offers a gently humorous show that raises questions about crowd dynamics. C’est pas là, c’est par là is odd and somewhat absurd, but deeply poetic and sociable. It is a collective, exuberant night-time exploration of questions about cityscapes and group emancipation.
https://vimeo.com/213216153
BIOGRAPHY
Juhyung Lee was born in 1991 in South Korea. He discovered street art when on civilian service in Seoul, taking part in shows by the Marseille-based theatre company Générik Vapeur. He was struck by how the grandeur of street art shows can transform symbolic locations with a liberating sense of joy, and started to become interested in the concepts behind such large-scale shows. His experiences of protest demonstrations in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square in 2015 fed his interest in themes such as how to reach a large group of spectators, the sense of scale within cities and the place of individuals within a group. He joined the FAI-AR training programme on art in public space in Marseille in 2015, and graduated in 2017 with his first performance, C’est pas là, c’est par là. Juhyung Lee won recognition from the 2018 Auteurs d’Espace competition run by France’s SACD (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers) and has since created the Galmae company (which partners with Générik Vapeur and Productions Bis) in order to continue his work around public involvement in participatory and symbolic installations.
DISTRIBUTION
De et mis en scène par Juhyung Lee (diplômé de la FAI-AR à Marseille).
Lumières : Olivier Brun.
Compositeur : Charles Henri Despeignes.
Comédien : François Palanque.
Constructeur : Alex Tabakof.
Production déléguée : Générik Vapeur.
Coproduction : Le Citron Jaune, L’abattoir.
Avec le soutien de : la SACD – Auteurs d’espaces.
Accueil en résidence : Théâtre La Passerelle scène nationale des Alpes du Sud – Gap
