Haribo Kimchi
Jaha Koo / CAMPO
Floating aromas of a steamy simmering soup, the sharp sound of a knife quickly slicing spring onions, hissing and sizzling of mushrooms on a scorching fire.
In Haribo Kimchi, we find ourselves in a pojangmacha, a typical late-night snack bar that can be seen scattered across the streets of South Korea. There we meet several lost souls: A YouTuber, an eel, a toad and a rice cooker. They take us on a culinary journey, exploring food culture as a form of language that reveals the structure of a society. In several absurdist and touching anecdotes, they recount the diaspora of Kimchi culture, cannibalism during the great famine, the sour pain of unadulterated racism and the deep umami taste of home.
After the Hamartia Trilogy (2021), in which he delved into the far-reaching imperialism in East Asia, the South Korean theatre maker and composer Jaha Koo returns with his newest creation. In his typical hybrid style, combining music, cutting- edge video and robotic performers, the artist reflects on cultural assimilation with all its conflicts and paradoxes. In an exceptional performance that plays with all the senses, he alters our perception of food for good.
Haribo Kimchi will premiere 10 May 2024 at Kunstenfestivalsdesarts, Brussels.
credits
concept, text, direction, music, sound & video Jaha Koo performance Jaha Koo, Seri, Toad & Haribo dramaturgy Dries Douibi scenography & media operation Eunkyung Jeong artistic advice Pol Heyvaert technical coordination Korneel Coessens technique Bart Huybrechts & Babette Poncelet Cuckoo hacking & Toad development Idella Craddock production coordination Wim Clapdorp production CAMPO coproduction Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Rideau de Bruxelles, Theater Utrecht, SPRING festival (Utrecht), Festival d’Automne à Paris, Théâtre de la Bastille (Paris), Tangente St-Pölten, &Espoo theatre (Finland), Kampnagel International Summer Festival (Hamburg), Sophiensaele (Berlin), Meet You Festival (Valladolid), Bunker (Ljubljana), National Theatre and Concert Hall Taipei, The Divine Comedy International Theater Festival/ Teatr Łaźnia Nowa (Kraków) & Perpodium with the support of the taxshelter of the Belgian Federal Government via Cronos Invest & the Flemish Government
The prototype of the eel was developed as part of Innovation:Lab's funnel in co-production with Theater Utrecht and creative technologists Adriaan Wormgoor & Willem Vooijs.