MOLKA

 You know it’s a good sign when you have no idea where to place what you just saw, and this could be said of Molka. Is it theatre? Is it performance art? Is it a dance piece with text? What kind of venue could this be most effective in…a museum? Inside of a political building? On the streets? Molka is a two-person dance/movement/performance/art piece with spoken word, improvisational and poetic elements. It’s an issue-based piece surrounding the concept of “molka,” or “sneaky camera,” when translated from the original Korean. It’s a voyeuristic practice in South Korea that many experience but seldom discuss. Women fear for their safety and privacy, as they are filmed going to the bathroom—pooping, peeing, wiping—doing all the things, y’know, you do in the toilet.

It's an assault of the strangest kind. It’s one of those assaults in which the victim/survivor (whichever term you prefer to use) doubts the impact of what has happened to them, purely because of its detached, virtual nature. This concept is teased out further when juxtaposed against experiences of an in-person, physical assault, which is also lightly touched upon in the piece: she was sitting on the couch, eating pizza with a glass of wine, when she told her friend what happened to her, one of the women recount. Further explored, as well, are the disturbing, yet factual, connections made between sexual acts and the act of using the toilet. Words like “cold cold cold” “gushing” “do it do it just do it.” The relief following a good toilet session is compared to the explosion that follows an orgasm. Both actors (Taeyun Kim and Nikita De Martin) contort their faces into the shape of a silent scream: a haunting conclusion to both the sexual and bodily acts. Strong, imagistic motifs, such as the silent scream, are perhaps hallmarks of the piece’s creators, Maja Laskowska and Taeyun Kim.

These motifs are evident too in the simple, yet strangely intellectual, set design. Comprised of an array of black chipboard squares and thick white paper, it immediately strikes me as something like a game board: Chess? Othello? The actors, too, play little “games” with each other throughout, hitting parts of their bodies as if they were playing a game of tag or sparring with each other. The first to turn over are the thick white papers, which are revealed to be protest placards in both English and Korean. These activate the political message inherent in the piece, with little bits of protest performance sprinkled in throughout. These bits are always tricky to script: after all, it is difficult to make laws and lawspeak theatrical. Towards the end of the piece, they try their best, re-iterating Section 33 and noting how several videos of these instances of molka- these violations of privacy- have hundreds of thousands of views. Whilst statistics do demonstrate one type of impact, it lands more solidly within the emotionally-tied, poetic moments. One particularly captivating instance was the piece’s opening: “There are things that happened to us that no one will remember… there are things that happened to us that we will never forget.” Within this longer form speech (that I may be paraphrasing terribly), so little is said, and yet, so much is discovered before we even begin. In another moment- an exchange between the two performers about getting your period for the first time- evocative language is used to create something of an ugly beauty:

Chocolate

Ice cream

I scream

Between my legs

Melting

It follows the motif before, in which the two performers we literally holding onto one another, pulling apart, trying to pee, or trying to orgasm. Another magical moment, as well, was the turning of the black tiles. What is underneath those black tiles? A mirror? A camera? In one of the more on-the-nose moments (and I think the duo who devised Molka have earned the right to be a little more on-the-nose), it’s revealed that there are bright, white bathroom tiles underneath. They turn them over and back over, checking and re-checking. Paranoia.

The turning over and back over, the repetition, slightly improvised, yet seemingly planned, is another strong suit of the production. There is much to be admired about the careful experimentation taking place, and while in some sections, this particular device may need a bit more reeling in, it is nonetheless a fantastic place to start creating work that is fresh and unexpected.

And because this piece is unexpected, and at times, unpredictable, I also felt there were (as said before) moments in which elements of the topic and themes of the piece could be tied back to the theatrical. Filming, surveillance, and cameras are heavily discussed, for instance, but they are largely absent from the production. Laskowska and Kim have already proved that they can skirt away from cliché. Now, they can afford to move just a little closer to it. They have already proved that they can treat heavy subjects with great care. Now, they can use play with the tools of oppression (footage, voyeurism) that dominate the discussion.

MOLKA was performed at the VAULT Festival from 7 Feb to 9 Feb 2023.