Crossroads of Youth BYEONSA Performance US Tour
Presented by SCREENSHOT: ASIA
NYC Show
Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 7pm
(Reception at 6:30pm)
Gerald W. Lynch Theater, CUNY
(524 W 59th St, New York, NY 10019)
Pittsburgh Show
Saturday, November 5, 2022 at 7pm
Alumni Hall Auditorium, 7th Floor, University of Pittsburgh
(4227 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15260)
Tickets: FREE
Byeonsa refers to the film narrator.
Byeonsa performance was a mode of movie watching popular in colonial Korea. This tradition was unique to the film culture of East Asia at its early stage. As opposed to the intertitles common in Western silent film, byeonsa performance would usually include both description of events and verbalization of characters’ voices. It came to Korea via Japan—benshi—during the colonial period and Korea developed its own style of film narration with its distinctive stylistic flourishes. Byeonsas were highly trained and highly respected artists and allegedly, some of them enjoyed greater celebrity than famous actors.
Tickets are FREE. To register, go to https://tinyurl.com/byeonsa2022.
◆ About the Performance
The Crossroads of Youth Byeonsa Performance US Tour will be bringing its troupe from South Korea to the United States for a multi-city tour in Fall, 2022. The byeonsa troupe presents Crossroads of Youth (Cheongchunui sipjaro, Ahn Jong-hwa, 1934), Korea’s oldest surviving silent film, with live storytelling, music, and acting in accompaniment. The troupe reimagines and reconstructs byeonsa culture, Korea’s unique film watching tradition from the colonial period.
◆ About the Film: its rediscovery and restoration
Crossroads of Youth had been believed to be lost, but was found in 2007 in a vault of a former theater owner's family. Its survival for over seven decades was a miracle, given Korea’s deeply turbulent modern history—from colonization to the civil war to military dictatorship, to which Korea lost many of its treasured films—and its extreme combustibility as nitrate film. Besides, its restoration also required meticulous efforts because of its poor condition. The Korean Film Archive nonetheless brought it back to life and in the following year, the Kirin Productions, led by director Kim Tae-yong (Memento Moriand, Late Autumn), joined the restoration project for live performance complete with narration, music, and acting.
◆ The Byeonsa Troupe
The restoration of the film was not the end. It did not have text or intertitles. Even back then in the 1930s, it used to be screened with byeonsa narration accompanied by live music and acting. That is, without byeonsa performance, the film could only be partially restored. That is, the full discovery of the film required a byeonsa. And this task went to director Kim and his production company, the Kirin Productions. The Kirin Productions put together a troupe and prepared the first byeonsa performance for the opening film festival of the Korean Film Archive to celebrate its move to a new office in Sangam in 2008. The byeonsa troupe has since been invited to many film and cultural events both at home and abroad. Their overseas visits included the 2009 Yale performance. Aside from it, however, the byeonsa performance has largely been unavailable to audiences in most of the major American cities, which justifies its multi-city tour in the U.S.
The byeonsa troupe consists of twelve members: Director (Kim Tae-yong), Managing Director, Producer, Stage Director, Music Director, byeonsa, byeonsa manager, 2 actors, and 3 musicians (Contrabass, Accordion, and Violin).