Summer Arts pick: Here are 5 things to know about Saturday’s Dohee Lee ‘Ritual on the Road’ Summer Arts performance
One of the public performance highlights of this year’s CSU Summer Arts festival features Dohee Lee, a Korean-American artist and winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is creator of a new ritual performance form that combines her training in ancient shamanic ritual practices with post-modern performance styles and electronics. The performance is 7 p.m. Saturday, July 13, at the John Wright Theatre at Fresno State.
Here are five things to know (with a thank-you to Lee and Summer Arts staff for putting it together):
1.
This Saturday’s Summer Arts performance by Dohee Lee Puri Arts (DPLA) will be a full-scale theatrical production. DLPA is bringing in live musicians, including Korean drummers and musicians. DLPA is the producing organization of performance artist and artistic director Dohee Lee (she/her), who weaves her multiple virtuosities in drumming, dancing, and singing into immersive ritualized theatrical creations.
2.
Born on Jeju Island, Korea, Dohee trained at the master-level in music and dance styles rooted in Korean shamanism. In 1998, she moved to Oakland to create a new art form. Since then she has become an award-winning traditional and contemporary arts performer, collaborating with Kronos Quartet, Anna Halprin, inkBoat, Degenerate Art Ensemble and many others.
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3.
Dohee Lee’s creative journey is centered in ritual and myth, with the central theme that myth connects us to our land and to each other, and through time and space; from our homelands to our newlands. From ancestor time to the present, shining a light on how we may continue in the future. Myths are not just tales from long ago – they are launching points for taking stories into you and transforming those stories into new personal myth. Dohee created a ritual ensemble for building community and to share stories to connect each other and release “Han” and enhance a communal spirit through ancestral ritual practice.
4.
She utilizes cutting-edge wearable wireless controller technology to seamlessly integrate acoustic and electronic sounds, video projections, dance, vocals and rhythm. In her performances, she emphasizes the mythical, experimental, ritualistic, historical and healing aspects of performance and installation, catalyzing new relationships between identity, nature, spirituality, and the political.
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5.
Saturday’s performance is “Ritual on the Road -Chilseong Saenamgut (Duringut)”: Ritual for Sickness is a performance ritual inspired by the sacred rituals originating in the artist’s hometown of Jeju Island, Korea. The ceremony, which features Lee performing along with three musicians, and a ritual altar, continues the exploration of ritual performances she began in 2004. This ritual allows participants to identify and confront challenges, purge destructive and monstrous spirits (Heomaengyee-허맹이), and invite vital spirits (Chilseong-칠성신) back to humanity and land. The Ritual performance is by Dohee Lee, Adria Otte, JaeEun Jun, Jiae Jang. Music composition is by Adria Otte and the ritual garment was conceived by Dohee Lee and Dana Kawano.
Ticket information is here.
