Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Qinella]

There's this performance in Korea known as Nanta. This review raves about the show, saying it is 'the must-see performance in Korea.'

So I went there last night with five others. Here's a quick summary of what it is, for those interested in going.

The setting is in a kitchen on the day of a wedding celebration. They have about 90 minutes to prepare the food for the reception. There are three regular cooks, a manager, and his nephew, who is supposed to be clumsy but allowed to cook since he is the important guy's nephew.

The character names are: manager, sexy guy, head chef, nephew, and female. Female's chef uniform is cool because it is missing a big piece where her stomach is. That became one of the only interesting aspects of the show for me.

I expected a wonderful, unique percussion performance, but instead it is really just like one of those weird comedy shows you see on TV here. You know, where they walk around making funny faces, grunting animal sounds, and humiliating themselves or others. Doing things like: chopping up vegetables and tossing it all over the stage, one guy falls ass-first into a trash can and can't get out, the manager chases them around stage, a fake goose is brought in that needs to have its head chopped off and everyone is afraid, someone runs around balancing a large stack of (glued-together) plates and a crashing sound effect is played when he runs off stage.

The worst part for me, but favorite for the rest of the audience, was when Head Chef was left alone on stage to direct the audience in a call-and-response style of clapping and stomping. He divided the audience into sections and first gave a simple 'I clap, you clap'. Easy. Next one, I clap twice, you twice. Next, clap,clap, clapclapclap. A little more complex. And of course you know what inevitably happens next: a clapping and stomping rhythm impossible for the audience to imitate. He did that little crescendo about 15 times, and the audience never got tired of it. I saw one guy take off his glasses and wipe his eyes, because he was laughing so hard. My girlfriend was in stitches. I felt bad, because I didn't even laugh one time, and I'm really not a pretentious comedy snob! I just don't think predictable, physical humor is funny.

As for the percussion performances, which were done for a few minutes at a time between the physical comedy routines, they were just blah. Not very good. Each cook had a chopping board table and some knives, whereupon they played some basic drumming rhythms. Impressive, I suppose, if it's the first time in your life you've heard percussion outside of pop music. They also played on various pots and pans set up around the stage. Have you ever heard people playing on pots and pans? It doesn't sound as wonderful as you'd imagine. I guess that's why people invented drums.

At the end, they had a percussion sequence where each character had a big kettle of something, and on the top was water. The strobe lights went on, and the awesome display of water flying up in the air wowed the audience. The lights went off, and then came back on with Nephew and Sexy Guy standing on their kettles with their shirts off. Six packs, hard pecks, for sure. It seemed relevant, to have shirtless guys standing there at the end, and I couldn't help but wish Female would've done the same.

If you've ever seen Blue Man Group perform, and if you haven't I recommend it, then you'll see that much of Nanta is a ripoff of them. The difference is that BMG designed new instruments rather than using plastic containers and spatulas, and BMG does some rhythms that are not worse than what any drumline kid in any marching band can do on quads.

Here's a video clip on youtube: Nanta! It's not the actual performance, but the intricacy of the rhythm and the sound qualtiy of banging on pots are equal.

Here is another clip, and it's from the grand finale of the actual performance. I hated this part, because the majority of the music is from a recording being played. They're simply beating along a really easy rhythm to the music and jumping around a little bit. It's supposed to be a grand finale, but there is absolutely nothing special about the music, the percussion, the lighting, the stage antics, or anything at all. I've been to ecstasy clubs with more interesting stage effects. It's just very low quality.

I went with four Canadians as well, and they loved the performance. Which reminds me that there were two separate times when the performers chose someone from the audience to come on stage, and both times they chose one of the Canadians in our group. It was funny how they went straight for whitey to ham it up on stage with their bad English. Does that ever get old? Nope, always funny. WHERE ARE YOU FROM!

The people I was with thought it was amazing, unique, original.. So I assume others who have been must have enjoyed it. Feel free to share your opinoin here. Personally, I wish I could've saved my 50,000 won and stayed home watching blue man group videos on Youtube.

[riley]

I would say Nanta! also stole their idea from Stomp, (the british percussion group) which were damn original.
If I want to see good percussion work, I go to the annual Seoul Drum festival, that's a good show. That or I go to my wife's temple where they have this freakin' huge drum that they pound at the start of the prayers. Great stuff.

[princess]

My friend's younger sister is one of the Nanta performers.

[zappadelta]

Yea, I agree Q, a little overrated. The time I went, about 3 years ago, I was pulled up on stage to play the part of the husband. Every time I go to one of these things, I get pulled up on stage. Same thing happened when I saw Jump in Korea. Guess that's why I haven't been to one in a while.

[jyjustyou]

http://www.englishkong.com/calendar_view.php?num=67&bbsID=event_calendar&page=1&start=0&search=&schKey=&schVal=&category1=&category2

[khyber]

I went to the show in busan in 2004.

In the realm of theatre, my tastes (must be) simple. It was nothing crazyg great but it was fine.

Unfortunately for me, I (not exaggeration, 100% of the time) ALWAYS get called upon to do tasks; street performers have a special affinity to me.

I hate it. I hate it so much. One time, this early twenties something guy, who was dressed up like a grandma (built like a brick shithouse) was on my shoulders juggling FLAMING knives. It sounds cooler than it was. It sucked. I was a big (fairly fat) fella and had no muscle mass. That guy TOTALLY misread me and I almost dropped him.

Another time, I kicked a 7 year old in the face (I was about 23). It was a mistake.

Nanta called me up. I was in the wedding scene (the groom). It was kind of embarassing. Although, it was nice change to have korean staring at me FOR A REASON.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Thanks for this review. I wish more people would report on their tours, concerts, cultural experiences.

In fact, I wish we had a separate forum for up-coming events. I miss plenty of stuff I'm interested in because I didn't hear about it until it was over.

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]