“Tales of Flowers” - still don’t know what to make out of it.

When I found out that I will have a pleasure of watching a new performance “Tales of Flowers”  in Uijeongbu Arts Center, I was quite exited and I have emailed their PR team at once asking for the synopsis. This is what I have received.

A world of chaos caused by greed and desire of mankind.

Abandoned by his mother for his abnormal appearance, Mokryeon has a weird dream. The setting of his dream is hell swarming with snakes. A woman burning in fire cries out Mokryeon’s name. Mokryeon finds a shaman who can read dreams, and learns that the person in the dream is his mother.
To rescue his mother, Mokryeon heads to hell with Shaman and passes through hell of fire and hell of water. When Shaman falls in water, Mokryeon cuts off his own arm to rescue Shaman. When they barely escape hell of blade, Mokryeon and Shaman feel affection for each other, but they are continued to be pursued. Can Mokryeon and Shaman safely pass through the challenges of hell and meet his mother? [Word to word exactly how I have received it]

One thing hit me momentarily. Since when the hell, snakes and cutting of your arm equals a flower tale? I could find more common features with Dante Alighieri's Inferno than any „flower tale”.  

When I have arrived at the performance I read short information about the plot placed on a brochure:  Tales of Flowers is a story of the unique Oriental sentiment, ‘final duty’ and it motifs lies in the western mythology of Orpheus and the similar Oriental mythology about magnolia Buddhist monk. 

So now, I had flowers, hell, limbs and Orpheus, all based in Oriental scenery in my head.  Not something I would like to focus on on Sunday’s afternoon. On the other hand I thought to myself that if people managed to survive watching The Nutcracker by Maurice Bejart where he used only the original score, but managed to change the original plot and characters presenting a story about a boy’s effort to re-connect with his mother (that part has a lot in common with The Tale of Flowers) I can survive flowers in hell, so I did.

I am anything but an expert on ballet, although I have seen several. Even not being an expert I could tell dancers might spend few more days practicing their combinations.  It was especially visible during those parts which were more, let say classical that the B-boying parts. Oh yes! You got it right. This performance is a mixture of b-boying, classical ballet, buchaechum (traditional fan dance) and martial arts. 

I still don’t know what to make out of it.

I am sure seeing it once is enough, but I would though recommend this performance for parents who wish to persuade their teenage kids to see ballet for the first time. This performance is much more digestible for teens than the classical ballet performance.        

        

                                                              

Would I recommend it to my friends? Yes and no, I would recommend it to them as an example of a strange hybrid of styles and plots combined into one. Koreans have a great ability to mix pieces in order to create something new and unique and that, I love in Koreans. But this time I don’t think they managed to reach the goal, sometimes less is better  and in this performance I have seen just too much of everything. Saying that, remember I might be wrong, after all there could be a method in this madness!