Lotus_ballet

Chan Ji Kim ©2005

The Lotus Flower is a composition based upon the Korean folk tale, The Story of Shim Choung. The story is about a kind daughter who sacrificed for her blind father, so he can live a long comfortable life. The title, The Lotus Flower represents the reincarnation in the story of the ballet. The piece includes six scenes:
1. The Blind Man and His Daughter Shim Choung
2. Three Hundred Bags of Rice
3. The Night Prayer
4. The Sacrificial Rite
5. Under the Sea
6. The Lotus Flower Opened. The Blind Eyes See.
The first scene describes a peaceful village. In scene 2, the blind father meets a monk and promises him that he can offer consecrate rice to a Buddha, however he realizes later he never can fulfill a promise. His daughter, Shim Choung finds out her father’s anxiety and prays for him in the next scene. Shim Choung is sacrificed for her father in the scene 4. In scene 5, she meets the dragon king and the sea ladies in the surreal world of the dragon palace. The dragon king has pity on her and orders her to go back to the real world. The sea ladies put her into a giant lotus flower and bring her back to her village. In the last scene, the villagers find a giant lotus flower in the sea, and try to open the flower. Finally the lotus flower opened when the blind father touches. His eye opens and he sees his daughter for the first time.