Good evening teachers and the fellow peer. My name is Lisa Kim and I’m one of the students from Haja Centre. At this very moment, I am going to speak about my school life, which mostly is involved in Noridan.
Firstly, before I came to Haja, I was attending public schools in Australia. I went there when I was in grade 3, stayed there for 6 years and came back to Korea December the last year. While I was in Australia, I was living in a boarding house, so as I became older, my mum looked for the ways that I can comeback, live with her, and settle well in Korea. As a result, she found some alternative schools and Haja was the best choice, because it was in Seoul and was not boarding school.
I applied Haja at the beginning of this year. Before I’ve entered this school, I just wanted to go to this school, because my mum demanded me and also it seemed easier than going to Korean public school at the stage when I wasn’t able to speak Korean very well. But as I did the audition and came into this school, I started liking this school. Most of the projects were new, fun and interesting. Music, film, art, literature, everything. Even the audition was something I’ve never experienced before. They called audition as “show haja” in this school and they named it like this because it wasn’t the audition that people judge the others by comparing who is better. “show haja” was inviting people, showing them what I like to do and introducing who I am. It wasn’t something concluded by “failed” and “passed”. In Semester 1, I started to do many projects at once, and by doing that, because I’m not sure what I wanted to be in the future, I’m trying out all the different kinds of projects at once and try to sort out which best suits me and which one I like the most.
Amongst the projects I was taking, there was this project called, “Noridan”, which is the name of this performance group that plays music by the instruments that they made by recycling and by the body percussion. It was one of the subjects that I was really interested in. Therefore in Semester 2, I decided to concentrate on this project and did an audition in July to be the Noridan member, meaning that I’m not a complete Noridan member, but was a Haja centre student who takes this course by working with Noridan members and learning from them. We are calling this “another school in Haja centre” since this is such a big project. Global school is another example of “another school in Haja centre”.
As I became a Noridan member, I wondered that the things I saw and thought about Noridan before I applied was completely different to the actual Noridan. I thought they were the team who just perform, make instruments and do the outside workshops. But they were different from the very beginning, the “show haja”. In Noridan show haja, going to camp and experience Noridan’s life was part of the show haja and after the camping everyone got to decide whether they want to continue or not. For a week we did yoga in the morning, lessons such as acting in the evening and we made music, practiced and played with instruments in the afternoon. And after all, we had show haja time, sharing with others what we made each day and had dinner all together. It was really fun and also helped me very much to get closer to the original members. For the second and the last time, I decided to be the Noridan member.
Not so long after the camping, I got on the first concert in Noridan. I was so scared and all I had in my mind was that I can’t make mistakes and I have to be perfect. But after the concert, the other members told me that the best way to perform was to enjoy and play with the audiences. I tried that the next time and it really worked. I was smiling, not because I got to make a good show, but because I was enjoying it and just playing. And I started learn many things in Noridan, that is not even related to music or performance.
When we are doing the concerts, we also need to decide what roles we’ll take. Such as who’s going to take care of the instruments, who’s contacting the truck driver and the outside participator, who’s going to negotiate the staffs, who’s going to stationary and emergency medication, etc. It changes every term or when the team member changes, since we have 30 members. I like taking the roles because it helps me being more responsible and I feel like being a grown-up.
I did many workshop as well as the concerts. There are many types to justify the workshops. By age, time, culture, making or playing. I did all sorts of workshops. Most of the short term workshops were teaching body percussion, making small and easy instruments with people, playing music using the instruments. Workshop is really hard, and even though I experienced many workshops, I still get scared few minutes before the workshop starts, because I have to teach people, change the way I speak to people, and think all sorts of things like how I can make the workshop enjoyable, make myself look professional etc. Also I had to examine the learner’s age, culture, interest, time and plan the workshop’s program. However, I think I my Korean and the way of communicating with people got better by doing the workshops.
Nowadays, I’m doing the long term workshop with another Noridan member and we did body percussion, making the small instruments and the big instruments in a house shape. We are also doing the workshops in between the members. I’m teaching the young primary school members the English. Other members are teaching drum rolls, yoga, and many more. The aim for the learner is to learn something that they have never got to learn and the aim for the teacher is to share the abilities they are good at and also bring up the skills of workshop teaching and use it in the outside workshop.
Noridan also provided the chances to learn from other artists as well. Haja invited foreigners for the artist residence program and make the workshops and because I’m in Noridan, I always had the chance to do the workshop first. Until now, 3 teams of artists came to do the workshop. Barbara doing the workshop of Brazilian dance, Hubub team doing the workshop of making a big car shaped instrument out of waste, Sound play ground team doing the workshop of making a few sets of marimba and vibraphone in a shape of sound playground.
Because I had no idea what I wanted to do in the future, I decided to try out Noridan and I learnt many things to be a performer, how to make instruments, and also something irrelevant to performance, such as being responsible, to communicate well with members and the people outside and as I learnt these things, I felt that I was changing and I was being a better person. And I was really satisfied with these things.
My parents also likes me doing what I like to do, but they hate the fact that I go home late because of the concerts and how most of the time I’m really tired, I just come home and rest, instead of having a talk with my family. And also, whenever there are parties or show haja held at Haja centre, I can hardly participate because of the Noridan schedule. I think they are the bad things in Noridan. Other than that I really enjoy my life in this group.
