Mother, I’m back/After passing dark, damp cliffs/I ran through the long night/As wind returns to the wind’s home to rest/I ran with only one heart. (From Kim Seong-ok’s poem “Gwi-hyang”)
The National Dance Company of Korea will present “Gwi-hyang” as its first new production of the year. The dance drama blends the lyricism of Korean dance with a theatrical narrative, drawing on Kim Seong-ok’s poem “Gwi-hyang” to stage the inner memories and emotions between a mother and her son.
Artistic Director and company head Kim Jong-deok said at a news conference on April 3 at the National Theater of Korea in Seoul that “Gwi-hyang” is a work he created to connect and communicate with audiences, built from a story he felt most deeply. He said he drew inspiration from his mother and his hometown.
Kim has often addressed social phenomena and broad themes, but said he came to feel limits in working that way. For this piece, he chose what remained most vivid in his heart: parents, family and home. Centered on family and longing that many can relate to, the production adds modern stage design to the restrained aesthetics of Korean dance.
Company member Jang Hyun-su, who plays the mother, portrays a devoted love for her child with small, detailed gestures. She hums the song “Spring Days Pass,” and speaks into empty air as if her son were beside her, expressing a mother living with dementia.
During the news conference, Jang Hyun-su became emotional while speaking about her mother. “I like the song lyric, ‘A pale pink skirt fluttered in the spring breeze.’ When I sing that song thinking of my mother, it makes my heart ache,” she said. “I think, my mother must have suffered so much. A mother is also a woman.”
Company member Jang Yoon-na, who plays the mother in her younger years, said she also immersed herself in the role. “I play the mother as she moves from her brilliant 20s and 30s through her 40s and 50s,” she said. “I’m also a mother in my mid-40s with two children, and I’m trying to express the sorrow by imagining what it would feel like to lose the son who was my whole world.”
The work has three chapters: the mother’s present at the end of her life; the story of mother and son; and a process of looking back on the mother’s life. The stage traces passing years, love and separation, memory and reconciliation, wounds and longing, and a journey toward recovery and comfort.
For Kim, a mother’s love is like a gardenia. “Gardenias are simple, but their fragrance is strong,” he said. “When I think of my mother, I think of a gardenia — not flashy, but with a gentle scent that carries far. It’s a kind of medium for expressing the memories and love in my heart.”
“Gwi-hyang” runs April 23-26 at the Haeoreum Grand Theater at the National Theater of Korea.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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