Radovan Dranga
Shows like Cuckoo are the reason I come to the PuSh Festival. What I knew about this show before I attended: the artist is from South Korea and he programmed rice cookers to talk. This was enough to pull me in.
The hour-long performance piece fuses together video montage, memoir and storytelling, arguments between small appliances, and a narrative about US involvement in the 1997 economic collapse of South Korea and the aftermath for the country and its citizens.
Jaha Koo is a South Korean artist in his thirties whose multimedia performances include video, text, monologue and his own music compositions. His current work includes three other characters, all Cuckoo brand rice cookers. Each has a distinct personality and underneath their flashing lights, catchy songs and witty banter lies a condemnation of automation and depersonalization which has caused increased depression and suicide in the artist’s generation.
Cuckoo is funny and dark at the same time. Jaha Koo explains the circumstances of a friend’s suicide. He describes the death of a young Korean subway worker (whose job was to fix the platform screen doors erected to prevent suicide by jumping in front of trains). He shows a rich American woman’s moronic inspirational video about how to be happy. He makes rice. Seldom have I seen a piece which so successfully mingles a technical gimmick, a personal story and an angry political critique.
One last show on February 5th at 8pm at the Waterfront Theatre.