“We are the Forest Music Band
(Dung Dda Koong).
Shall we listen to a wonderful
performance (Dung Dda Koong)?”
— The Forest Music Band
Minutes before The Forest Music Band, Dung Dda Koong began at 3 p. on Aug. 18, 2024, Filipino folk songs wafted around CCP’s Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez. It was an apt prelude, I thought, to the children’s play to be staged by the Korean Cultural Center (KCC) with the Namwon National Gugak Center (NNGC). It underscored KCC’s theme of cultural heritage for August in marking 75 years of friendship between the Philippines and Korea.
The stage was ready with The Forest Music Band’s (FMB) traditional Korean bow and plucked string instruments: gayageum, haegeum, ajaeng, and geomungo.
Earlier in the month, KCC held Sticks & Kicks: Phil-Kor National Sports Demonstration, an exhibition of Korean and Filipino martial arts. Korean Kukkiwon, aka World Taekwondo Headquarters, highlighted the power of taekwondo, while the Philippine Eskrima Kali Arnis Federation demonstrated the calm precision of arnis, a Filipino martial art that uses sticks, knives, bladed weapons, or bare hands in combat. The event was completed with dance performances by Nara, KCC’s homegrown performance team, and the Philippine Baranggay Folk Dance Troupe.
‘Pansori’
The theater was engulfed in darkness after the announcement that taking photographs wasn’t allowed. Seconds later, Oriole, Rabbit, Bear, Wolf, and Fox, the pansori singer, appeared, signaling the start of the 45-minute interactive play on Korea’s traditional string instruments.
Pansori, Korea’s story-telling tradition before K-drama took over, is conventionally an epic of songs performed by a singer holding a folding fan, and accompanied by a drummer (english.cha.go.kr).
The pansori plays all the epic’s characters and maintains rapport with the audience throughout the performance. An engaged audience is part of the performance’s success.
Per Encyclopedia Britannica, the pansori singer “combines song (ch’ang), narration (sasol), and dramatic gestures (pallim) to tell a story,” and the pansori was declared an “intangible cultural asset” in 1964. The traditional pansori underwent changes to keep up with the times, for instance with the focus shifting to ch’annguk, the theatrical aspect of it. But its most significant adjustment was opening up the strictly male-only role to females. Historically, Chin Ch’aeson was Korea’s first professional female pansori singer, ushering in new sounds and gestures and leading to the founding of female pansori troups.
In The Forest Music Band, Dung Dda Koong, Lee Jisuk played Fox and pansori with aplomb.
The NNCG holds regular full pansori performances that lasts for hours, gaya harp concerts, and the samulnori, or traditional Korean percussion quartet (kpopmap.com).
‘Forest idols’
It wasn’t surprising to see how skilled the cast of six was, all being bonafide NNGC artists (per kpopmap.com, only top performers are recruited by the NNGC). Fox was pansori par excellence with her expressions and movements which, for an untrained audience, could seem excessive. She was funny and exuberant in her narration, dancing and singing with sustained energy. She had the children laughing at her antics, even when she was supposedly breaking wind. She had them excitedly volunteering to try playing the instruments, recite Dung Dda Koong, and do the dance steps to Tiger’s birthday song.
Tiger, the other pansori, was not to be overshadowed by Fox. Played by Yu Taegyeom, he easily matched Fox’s enthusiasm and movements, garnering his share of the applause.
Oriole, brought to life by Yun Yi Na, plucked and strummed the gayageum with expert elegance. Noticeably, her 12-string Korean zither had a higher timber compared to Wolf’s geomungo, another Korean zither, but with six strings and a pencil-size bamboo plectrum. Although Wolf, played by Yang Yujin, visibly put in strength in using the plectrum, he was serenely poised.
Bear and Rabbit were equally brimming with enthusiasm. Bear, played by Lee Sena, was a happy sight drawing the 25-cm bow across the eight-string ajaeng, whether solo or with the ensemble. Likewise, Rabbit, played by Jang Ji Yeon, was a master of the haegeum, pushing and pulling the horsetail bow across the two strings of the vertical fiddle with a sound box.
Lesson on forgiveness
The play’s magic shone through the fluid merging of knowledge about Korea’s traditional string instruments and a tale about friendship with a moral for children.
Tiger was the naughtiest of the forest friends. He was always playing jokes or scaring Oriole, Rabbit, Bear, and Wolf, who were sick and tired of his incessant pranks (although he was oblivious of this). One day Tiger fell into a pit and couldn’t climb out. Fox, who heard his screams for help, ran immediately to get the FMB quartet to rescue him. To her shock, they were uncooperative and instead complained about Tiger’s mischief.
Fox had to explain to them the importance of forgiving Tiger, which eventually moved the quartet to help get him out of the hole. Later, to thank everyone, Tiger invited them to his birthday party. In return, the musicians and Fox performed a grand number at his party and gifted him with a birthday cake.
Keeping traditions alive
That Korea has always been forward-looking, and keeping its past in view is commendable and highly enviable. The Philippines can arguably do something on a similar scale for its traditional arts—and history—to make these accessible to and less esoteric for many Filipinos.
Do we even remember the folk tales we learned and the musical instruments we played in our youth? Admittedly, I’m hard-pressed to recall them, but I do remember reading The Legend of Maria Makiling, and shaking the Philippine angklung in my grade-school music class conducted by a parent-teacher who was passionate about Filipino musical instruments. (Sadly, that music class disappeared altogether in high school.)
Filipinos have epics and the Koreans have their pansori. Filipinos can, like Koreans, adapt traditional Filipino arts to the times. Undoubtedly, it will be a tall order when it comes to funding and organization, but nothing starts without that first step to preserve the traditional arts and pass these on to today’s generation and the next. It’s one way to strengthen both identity and nationhood.
Telling our childhood stories every now and then can lead us to rediscover our non-toxic traits, practice empathy, and enjoy the beautiful sounds of natural music versus a synthesized version. Pushing it forward, we could be celebrating with an angklung ensemble and be more like our Korean chingu (friend).
