Outland Fish : 이방의 물고기（異邦の魚） - Installation performance

Outland Fish II
Nottle Theatre Company's Diaspora Series I　日本語サイト -> Japanese
June 27 - 29, 2024: Hooyoung Performing Arts Centre - Wonju

" Outstanding expression like a poem written by the bodies" "Outland fish" is the first performance of the Diaspora trilogy - following Korean Diasporas’ journey - that Nottle theater company have worked for 3 years from 2022. Through those creative works Nottle would like to pose a topic which buried in history to contemporaries. In the research in Jeju Island, we visited the memorial sites of the April 3 incident, climbed a sacred mountain, took lessons in traditional songs from a shaman who is also a female diver, and went out to sea for five hours on a small fishing boat. In Tsuruhashi, Osaka, we researched the lives of Zainichi Koreans from Jeju Island and listened to their experiences. The story of Harumoni in her 80s, who had fled to Tsuruhashi as a stowaway from the April 3rd Incident of Jeju Island as a girl, was full of strength who had lived a positive and cheerful life despite various harsh experiences.

“Where am I now?” "I was born there, I just grew up there." For diaspora, ‘home country is a little unfamiliar place.  "What is your country?" "What is identity?" "What is a family?" "What is a home?" I'm outside (inside) and you're inside (outside).  The "records of inner fierce" of people who have lived in constant battle against huge something that cannot grasp. Director: Won Young-Oh Performers: Lee Euna, Shin Inchul, Song Daeryeong, Lee Hyejin Space design / Visual installation: Naomi Ota Lighting design: Kyungwook Min Assistant Director: Jang Woo-seok Producer: Cha Nayoung

The title of "Outland fish" was inspired by the experience of seeing a fish jumping on the muddy Hirano River in Tsuruhashi, Osaka, which the members visited for research. Fish that certainly live beneath the surface, even though they are not visible.... The coelacanth depicted in the poster is a work of Kim Young-sook, the third generation Japanese Korean living in Osaka, adds the symbolic meaning of "just be living there" even if it is not known to this work.

"There are people who have built a living foundation in Inokaino, Osaka where they came as stowaway.

Around the Hirano canal that crosses the region north-south, there are people who live in houses like henhouses who have been suffering from discrimination, low wages, conflicts within the nation, etc.

They are marginal people who do not belong to either Korea or Japan. They are not Koreans or Japanese, but Zainichi Koreans (South Koreans living in Japan).

Every night, they wander around the Hirano canal and throw themselves into the canal as if to forget the pain of the day. They became carp and swam all night in the dark water.
In the morning, they will live the life of Ikaino again."

- From the program

An excerpt from NAT news 2022/12/25

Delicate scenes directed by Won Young-oh which capture the hearts of the audience with aesthetic symbols and metaphors, the epic movement of the performers who specialised in physical training, and especially Naomi Ota's installation, which expanded the stage space into various spaces of time and space, by those the audience were drawn into a long journey of marginal people who could not settle anywhere.

Director: Won Young-Oh
Performers: Lee Euna, Hyeong Seungsin, Ju Donghwa, Hong Hanbyul
Visual installation: Naomi Ota
Lighting design: Kyungwook Min
Assistant Director: Jang Woo-seok
Media tech:Jung Inhyuk
Regional corrdinator: Oh Soon Hui
Producer: Cha Nayoung