日期 : 2019-10-02

地點 : Room 109, Chen Kou Bun Building, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Title: Refusing obliquely: On siren eun young jung and the three moments of performing in anomaly

Date: 2 October 2019 (Wed)

Time: 12:30pm – 2pm

Venue: Room 109, Chen Kou Bun Building, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Speaker: Prof. Soo Ryon Yoon (Assistant Professor, Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University)

Moderator: Dr. Wong Yuk Ying Sonia (Lecturer, Gender Studies Programme, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Abstract:

My presentation considers South Korean media and visual artist siren eun young jung (she writes her professional name in all lower cases) and her work Yeoseong Gukgeuk Project (2008- ), a series of archival research-based installations and performances about all-women musical theatre in the 1950s’ Korea. To recognize queer politics as well as performative nature of the all-women musical theatre tradition, jung uses the concept of “anomaly,” a variation of refusal, as an important set of strategies to intervene in a number of areas. I categorize her acts of intervention into three themes or moments of her research and artistic practices: queering of the archive and theatre history; tampering with conventional curatorial practices in gallery and theater; and rendering of the question of gender identity and same-sex desire performative itself. Closely reading her installation and performance works, I discuss how siren eun young jung’s pieces critique the normative narratives about the nationalized and heteronormative theatre history of South Korea. I also explore how jung’s methodology further interrogates the ways in which scholars and institutions conceptualize the archive as stable and enduring.  Materials presented at the internal seminar are published in the Venice Biennale catalogue of eun young jung’s work.

Speaker’s Biography:

Soo Ryon Yoon is an assistant professor in the Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University. Her research and teaching explore contemporary performance, racial politics, and sexuality in South Korea, particularly through the instances of choreography of raced bodies. She is completing her monograph titled,Choreographing Affinities: Blackness, Koreanness, and Performing Race in Korea on transnational circulation of African diasporic dances in the South Korean context. She is also working on her second project on dance spaces and censorship on sex and sexual cultures in South Korea. She has written for Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, ASAP/J, Global Performance Studies (GPS),positions: asia critique (in press), and the Korean Pavilion catalogue for the 2019 Venice Biennale among others.

Language: English

Registration: https://bit.ly/2kNRWXv