Drankensberg boys’ choir, Suseong Artpia, 15 May 2010

After almost a year in a foreign country, the homesickness becomes a dull background ache. You stop noticing the little gaps in your experience of the world. Other things become normal. You get on with it. And there are good times and life goes on. It takes a show like this one to remind you that your heart doesn’t beat with the regular clackity-clack of the high-speed, high-tech world of Korea – it pounds and whispers with the complex sounds of Africa.

The show started with a mini-intro performance (2 songs) by a Korean choir. Possibly the Daegu City Children’s choir but no English info. They did two songs. They were good, their conductor was enthusiastic and their pianist wore a sparkly ball-gown. They even moved a little from side-to-side and clapped their hands in the second song. A little unfortunately, their rather stilted movements provided a glaring counter-point to the natural flow and energy of the Drankensberg boys.

Once the little girls and boys in aqua-marine (with ruffles) and simply awful white double-breasted blazers had been applauded off, the main act took to the stage. The first half of their programme was a fairly traditional choir performance. They stood still (-ish) in rows (mostly) and sang like with angel-voices. It took a while for the audience to get into it. Their performance was good, but not spectacular and traditional choirs singing traditional music very accurately aren’t all that unusual here. In a country where almost all of the kids play at least one musical instrument and a large percentage (I’d say at least ¾) study singing in the same way they study maths and English, accurate,and often excellent, performances are not uncommon. Which is not to say the audience didn’t enjoy it. They did. The choir even performed Pie Jesu, which was pretty good but not perfect. It was during this performance that I glimpsed, from my seat in the second row (no, I don’t know how I swung that), a sight one doesn’t often see: a Korean nun stealing forward from her seat to get a better view from up front.

By the time the choir performed the Prayer of St Francis with hand movements to illustrate the words, everyone was starting to warm up to them. The conductor also eased their way by saying a few words in Korean. And then they performed Arirang. Arirang is a Korean folk song that seems to be considered a part of the essence of what it is to be Korean. A little like Kimchi. I’m not entirely sure they don’t think it is part of their genetic make-up. Every Korean child knows it and they have a tendency to start singing it spontaneously every time there is a discussion about Korean culture in class. I was a little nervous. I think I held my breath throughout the whole song, eyes on the audience to see how they would respond. Attempting Arirang would either be a huge hit or a disaster. I was hugely relieved when the end of the song was greeted with thunderous applause. The audience was on our side and I relaxed into enjoying the rest of the show. Yes, I know I have nothing to do with it, but when a choir from your country is performing for an audience in the country where you now live, it feels a little personal.

There was also a very good chance that some of my students would be in the audience. There were certainly plenty of teens and kiddies there, some in groups of friends, some with their families. The teenage girls only but made their presence felt a few songs later, when two young black boys led the choir in ‘A crazy little thing called love‘ and got a pop-star (which in Korea equates to superstar) response. Man in the mirror, which got the whole audience clapping, and Circle of Life, and it was time for intermission. The mood in the room was jovial and children and adults buzzed up and down the aisles chatting and laughing.

For the first half of the show, the choir had been wearing the traditional (awful) blue and white outfits of the Drankensberg Boys’ Choir. During the interval they went off to change and the stage was rearranged for a different kind of experience to come. After a slight delay post-lights-down at the end of the interval, they returned and opened with a song I am particularly fond of, and which will now be stuck in my head for the rest of the week, Kwangena Thina Bo.

The second half was completely different fare. In brightly coloured shirts, interspersed with zulu warrior costumes and gumboot dancing gear, the choir wowed the audience with a series of South African favourites, often not even leaving time for applause in between songs. After a few songs, everything went black and they performed a piece called ‘Night Sounds from the African Veld‘. Every South African knows those sounds. I found myself taking deep breathes and shedding a few tears for home.

Then there was Soccer Ball Surprise – Bazeya, a delightful, energetic song using soccer balls to create the rhythms beneath the perfectly pitched vocal movements. And then came the gumboot dancing. It is hard to say whether the Zulu warriors or the gumboot dancing got more reaction from the audience but the cheering and teenage-girl shrieks and the thunderous applause were a significant indicator of how they felt. They were also enhanced with the two little boys in full Kaapse Klopse outfits (complete with umbrellas) who brought in Nuwe Jaar.

During a later song, four little zulu warriors in skins came out into the audience and greeted their adoring fans, ranging, I was amused to note, from toddlers and teenage girls to middle-aged mamas. They said ‘Anyeong’ to as many as they could manage before returning to the stage for the last few songs.

One of the pieces that affected me the most, although I found it interesting to see that the Koreans didn’t seem to react to it all that much, was an African drumming piece. Rhythms in Korean music tend to be, from what I have observed, fairly regular. I think the complex beats which filled my soul with ecstasy and made me feel alive were a bit too foreign for them. Actually, they missed a lot of the rhythms. The audience kept trying to clap along to everything but the clapping soon petered out as they lost track of what the drums and the shakers and the nimble hands were doing. I noticed people trying very hard to follow , though, in the same way they tried to imitate every time a ‘click’ sound showed up in a song.

Far too soon for me, and I think a lot of other people, the show was over. After two encores, the conductor resolutely shepherded his choir off the stage. They must have been exhausted from all the energetic dancing and singing. I hope everyone who was there had fun. I certainly did. And walking out of the theatre, through gaggles of girls who were clearly waiting around to try and get a chance to talk to their new heroes, I was so glad I went and so very, very proud to be South African.