Haribo Kimchi

"Haribo Kimchi is a refined and lively performance about life in a country that is not your own. Not only love, but also melancholy goes through the stomach." Floris Baeke and Charlotte De Somviele, De Standaard, 3 August 2024

If you come to ‘Haribo Kimchi’ hungry, you'll probably want a seat at Jaha Koo's snack stand. The theatre maker, performer and music composer tours the world with his technically meticulous and touching works, which explore the tension between his South Korean origins and his life in Europe. His new performance ‘Haribo Kimchi’ is a heart-warming work about migration, home and the healing power of food. Koo invites the audience on stage to a pojangmacha, a typical South Korean late-night snack bar, which turns out to be a mystical place. Here the audience meets lost souls: A snail, a gummy bear and an eel explore the structure of society through food culture. In anecdotes that are as absurd as they are touching, they tell of the diaspora of kimchi culture, of cannibalism during the Great Famine, of the pain caused by blatant racism and of the umami flavour of their homeland. In the combination of music, video and robotic performers typical of his pieces, Jaha Koo reflects on the conflicts and contradictions of cultural assimilation - and changes the perception of food in his live cooking performance that plays with all the senses.

The acclaimed world premiere of ‘Haribo Kimchi’ took place in summer 2024 at Tangente St. Pölten and has since toured major festivals around the world. In NRW, the piece can be seen for the first time at Impulse Festival 2025.

Tickets Haribo Kimchi | Fr. 20. Juni, 21:00 Uhr

Tickets Haribo Kimchi | Sa. 21. Juni, 21:00 Uhr
On 21 June, the screening will be followed by a discussion (in English).

Concept, text, direction, music, sound, video: Jaha Koo
Performance: Gona, Haribo, Eel, Jaha Koo & two guests
Dramaturgy: Dries Douibi
Stage, research collaboration, media use: Eunkyung Jeong
Artistic consultant: Pol Heyvaert
Technical coordination: Korneel Coessens
Technology: Bart Huybrechts, Babette Poncelet, Jasse Vergauwe
Production coordination: Wim Clapdorp
English proofreading: Jason Wrubell
Animation snail: Vincent Lynen

A production by Jaha Koo and CAMPO in co-production with Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels, Rideau de Bruxelles, Theatre Utrecht, SPRING festival, Utrecht, Festival d'Automne à Paris, Théâtre de la Bastille, Paris, Tangente St. Pölten, & Espoon Teatteri, International Summer Festival Kampnagel, Hamburg, Sophiensæle, Berlin, Meet You Festival, Valladolid, Bunker, Ljubljana, National Theatre and Concert Hall Taipei, The Divine Comedy International Theatre Festival / Teatr Łaźnia Nowa, Krakow, Perpodium. With the support of Flanders Tax Shelter via Cronos Invest and the Flemish Government. With the kind support of the Goethe-Institut.