This weekend was the first edition of ‘SPRING Days’: a new concept of SPRING Performing Arts Festival in which activities are organized throughout the year in Utrecht with local partners. This weekend SPRING presented the performance Haribo Kimchi by Jaha Koo, after it unfortunately had to be cancelled last May. For Haribo Kimchi, the local partner was Theater Utrecht.
The weekend started on Friday with the Reading Group “Food in South-Korean Literature,” organized in cooperation with bookstore Savannah Bay. In this Reading Group, the books The Vegetarian by Han Kang and I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee were read and discussed together.
On Saturday and Sunday, it was finally time for the performance itself: Haribo Kimchi was performed 3 times at the Paardenkathedraal in front of a sold-out audience. After the Dutch premiere on Saturday, there was an interesting aftertalk with Jaha, with fascinating and personal questions from the audience.
On Monday was the workshop ‘Storytelling through Kitchen Practices’ with Jaha Koo, in which participants cooked the meals of Haribo Kimchi and discussed how to incorporate kitchen practices in the stories and narratives we tell.
