“If you want to hunt a tiger you must enter its cave first.”
Visit the Jikji Theatre Project Website to learn more about the movement and stories surrounding the world's oldest book printed with movable metal type entitled 백운화상초록불조직지심체요절 (Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests' Zen Teachings) or 직지 (Jikji). Also be sure to check our upcoming auditions and research.
Dr. 박병선 (Dr. Park, Byeon Seon)
Dr. 박병선 proved Korea was the first place in the world where moveable metal type was used for printing. This collection, also referred to by its shortened name “Jikji” , was printed in 1377, 78 years earlier than the Gutenberg Bible. UNESCO honored it by including it in its World Heritage listing in 2001.
Theatre Amoeba has been researching Jikji in Cheongju, South Korea for two years where Denise Rinehart works as a theatre professor and artistic director for Theatre Amoeba. Over time Amoeba has developed an imaginative physical work using choral storytelling, mask, and the poetry of objects that tells the tale of an ambitious young woman working at the National Library of France who discovers a book- but not just any book.
This true story takes place not long after the Korean War, in 1955, when Dr.박병선first flew to Paris. Secretly looking for cultural relics that had been stolen from Korea during the 1866 attack on Gangwando Island known as the병인양요, she discovers the 직지 (Jikji.)
Plunge into a physical world of storytelling as the memories of Dr. Park take you on historic and imaginative retelling of her discovery of the 직지and her lifetime struggle to return it to its rightful home in Korea.