While preparing the performance, I exchanged ideas about costumes and choreography with the two choreographers, 정금희 and 변상아.

During those conversations, they brought up Chunaengmu and its costume. That was when I learned that Chunaengmu is a dance portraying an oriole on a spring day.

An oriole on a spring day.

I liked those words.

In the first scene, the young Bari takes off her Chunaengmu costume and drapes it over the older Bari. In the final scene, the older Bari puts that costume back on the young Bari.

The costume that was taken off returns.

Through these two scenes, I wanted to express a cycle of life that is difficult to escape.

Onstage, they are different times in the same person's life. But because a real mother and daughter perform these scenes, they also carry the meaning of karma passing from one generation to the next.

Yet Chunaengmu holds another meaning, too.

Flying freely, like an oriole on a spring day.

Even within that repeating cycle, I wanted to express a wish that one day she might fly free.

For the older Bari, it is a wish that she may now be released from that life. For the young Bari, it is a hope that she will not repeat the same life.

The cycle of karma, and the longing to escape it.

I wanted to hold those two meanings in a single costume.

But after the performance, I heard something unexpected.

Some audience members had seen the costume as bridal clothing. They understood the story as a woman beginning a new life through marriage after years of hardship.

I was shocked.

I had been captivated by the meanings of the Chunaengmu costume and the cycle it created. I had not thought about how the costume itself would look to the audience.

I had been too hasty.

Even now, this is the scene in BARI I most regret.