Sin Cha Hong's Godot, Beckett's Godot

by Yoon Jo-byeong / Thesptan, former professor of Korea National University of Arts

All the world knows Sin Cha Hong as one of the most prominent performing artists of our age. A log time ago, as a young woman with a major in English Literature in Korea, she traveled to New York City and her experience there transformed her. When she returned to her native land, no one expected this English literature graduate to be an avant-guard performing artist, to dance with her troupe at Myeonglong's famous art theater.

Her innovative movements, an internal dance spirit, a dance carrying a message, a dance of catharsis, shook and shocked the Korean audience of that time. Due to her bold performances, at first traditional Korean society closed its doors to her. As a person and pioneer who is denied affirmation, I can't imagine how lonely she was during this peroid. Crestfallen, she moved back to New York where her personal freedom was restored.

Wearing baggy clothes and sneakers, she wandered around New York like a vagrant in search of the formula for true freedom. Strange music from India called her name. Again, she threw away her New York like and friends, and traveled to India. This life in perpetual exile is Sincha Hong's Godot.

She met famous Yogis, philosophers, musicians and scholars. Seeing, listening, touching, she became aware and enlightened into the river Ganges, pungent with the odor of shit and of God. On foot, she wandered through the mountains and the plains. Through meditation, fasting and yoga, she listened to the sound of the universe.

She overcame conversational ideas, traditions, the social confines placed on sexuality and spirituality, and then she could hear the true voice of the teacher. It spoke, "the mystery and innocence of dance, the freedom of dance, this is your way. Dance is the beginning, and ending of all your life. It starts with dance and will be your final step."

After all this, she returned to Korea and built Laughing Stone Dnace/Healing Center in Juskan, working together with those friends who, like her, were discovering mystery and freedom. Putting together a touring dance troupe, she went all around Korea and the world, inspired by her Godot.

Today she will meet Beckett's Godot with her dance. The play Waiting for Godot was a huge success in Korea, but this is will be the first dance interpretation of the work ever done here or anywhere. What is Beckett's Godot? That which never comes? That which comes tomorrow? Godot never says a word, never makes a gesture. No one ever knows when Godot comes or if Godot comes at all. Therefore, just as Stephen Hawkings searched black holes to trace the history of time and Mario Morgan went into the Australian outback to capture the secrets of life, Sincha Hong went around the world in search of her Godot.

What is the difference between the Godot of her past which she sought out for many years, and the Godot she is now waiting for? Her proposition is that no one can make you understanding the world, only you can gain that understanding through your own journey and enlightenment. She will pose the question we are all afraid to ask. She will, in her own way, reveal the essence of her proposition through the dance "Waiting for Godot."

I anticipate her performance with great expectation.