Musician and artistic director Lui Park discusses HATA’s music with World Music Central.
How did the percussion group come about?
Hata world music & art performance group was formed in 2000 by Lui Park (artistic director) with a group of professional, energetic musicians and performers.
The formation of HATA is not only grown with a desire to make Korean traditional music and performing arts more artistic, creative and musical, but also to cross the borders of many genres and creating a new style of world music with various fields of musicians and performers.
What does HATA mean?
HATA has historical origins in the India-Aryan Buddhism language. “Ha” means Sun, and “Ta” means moon.
Most of the musicians have performed over 12 to 40 years. Some musicians learned from their parents.
Also all members work as musicians, professors and music teachers. They get invited a lot to international festivals.
Our musicians play traditional instruments of their own countries, like sitar, odu, erhu (Chinese string instrument), gayageum, geomungo (Korean strings), Daegeum (Korean wind instrument), traditional drum & percussion, and bass, keyboards, guitar.
We will participate with 10 musicians at the Rainforest World Music Festival 2012. They come from Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Malaysia.
One of our problems is too many musicians. So it’s really difficult to have a smaller line up. The aim of the Rainforest World Music Festival 2012 line up is that it is representative of Asia’s ethnic sound and spirit.
Of course, these10 musicians are professional musicians, and the best members of Hata. We will perform with sitar, odu, darbuka, gayageum, erhu, and percussion.
We will perform 12 songs for 60 minutes; it’s very unique and ethnic music of Asia. The music crosses the borders of many genres, and performers inherit traditions of their country as legitimate players and produce new different kind of sound and new music by studying various world music genres with continuous experiments.
It goes beyond passing down traditional music and produces a unique and contemporary sound through experimenting; creating new world music.
What drums will you be playing in Malaysia?
We will perform 1 big drum and 4-5 middle & small drums. Our drums include Japanese taiko, Korean traditional drums, Taiwanese small drum, and Turkish percussion (darbuka, bendir)
It must be difficult to travel with so many drums, especially the larger ones. How do you manage international travel?
Yes, this is big problem for us. The first way is to send early by ship. Usually, we prefer this way. Sometimes, we borrow instruments from friends who live in the festival’s country.
The name is dae-buk. In Korean language it means big drum.
Who can you cite as your main musical influences?
Actually, I’m focused on shamanistic music and ethnic music of Korea, Japan, China, Mongolia, India, Central Asia and Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim.
As you know, there are not many famous musicians and groups in Asia in the world music genre. I think the famous Asian world music genres are raga (Ravi Shankar), sometimes Japan’s taiko, Gamelan of Indonesia, Khoomeii of Mongolia and Tibetan Buddhist music. These musics influence me, and Africa’s traditional sounds too.
Composition work is easier than practice because we live in different countries. We practice every December in Korea.
We have two musical directors, Lui Park (Korea) and Alasgar Abbasov (Azerbaijan). Both director discuss three parts before composing. First is which country’s theme and feeling, second is which country’s rhythm and tempo and last is who will join.
After we compose original music, we send the music score to musicians and then practice. Finally, we complete music every December in Korea. While we practice, we discuss many possibilities of how to make the music better and respect each musician’s opinion.
If you could gather any drummers or musical groups to collaborate with whom would that be?
I am open to collaborating with any musician and performer if they want to perform the world music genre. That is objective of HATA. Of course, we respect every country’s music and culture. We put the spirit of traditional music and culture while compose music and song.
But the important thing is that musicians must play the traditional style. Because we don’t want to just mix too many countries’ music.
Are you working on new projects?
I would like to showcase at WOMEX, AWME and MMVV. But, I am not sure about participation, because I just sent our material to the organizations. I am waiting for their decisions. And we will have a concert on the 29th of December this year in Korea.
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More information about HATA: www.hata.kr
Rainforest World Music Festival: rwmf.net
For travel to Rainforest World Music Festival and accommodation: sarawaktourism.com
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.
