Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori

Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Chon, ChuYoung Joy
Language:	English
Published:	The Ohio State University / OhioLINK 2014
Subjects:	Theater History Korean theatre
Online Access:	http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388624592

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spelling	ndltd-OhioLink-oai-etd.ohiolink.edu-osu13886245922021-08-03T06:21:20Z Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori Chon, ChuYoung Joy Theater History Korean theatre Contemporary South Korean theatre of the twenty-first century has actively embraced the reproduction of indigenous tradition. Productions marked with Korean cultural codes are now a format for success among domestic and non-domestic audiences. Today, the revivalist movement of Korean indigenous arts is widely recognized as a pathway to the global market. The aim of this movement is to establish Koreannesque theatre that accurately represents Korean culture, as a competitor among other national or ethnic theatres. Ultimately, this revitalization demonstrates an unceasing longing for national theatre, or theatre that proudly represents Korean culture and sentiments to others. Here, the adjectives Korean and Koreannesque take on a nationalistic meaning that presupposes ethnically unique Korean features that broadly refer to the indigenous or traditional customs and culture prior to the influence of Japanese colonization and Western influence.The objective of this study is to critically examine South Korean director Sohn JinChaek’s creatively revived form of madangnori, an indigenous outdoor performance marked by theatrical story-telling and musical-like quality. The study investigates how Sohn contradicted contemporary society and artistic direction, and how he sought to establish a new theatre genre unique and native to Korean ethnic identity. By examining madangnori’s social and artistic relations with the representative theatrical work at that time, I will locate its place within the domestic and international domains. At the same time, I will explore the uniqueness of this uncommon and unrecognized theatrical form, which was ironically, made popular by a mainstream theatre director. This dissertation also indexes the rich matrix of events which led to the creation of madangnori and to its unusually long-term success; Long-term relative to other theatrical forms in South Korean theatre. I will examine the somewhat unclear relationship between madangnori and two stylistically similar genres, changguk and madangguk. Changguk is a modernized adaptation of pansori which is performed as an opera. Madangguk is a modernized adaptation of mask dance drama which shared great stylistic similarities with Sohn’s earlier productions before madangnori settled down as a specific performance genre after the 1990s. Changguk and madangguk were created and promoted by different political groups, yet madangnori partly share the stylistic and ideological directions with them. I argue that Sohn’s work has more in common with these two theatre genres more than with the two contemporary directors, Oh TaeSok and Lee YunTaek, whose work also have been discussed under the modernization of tradition. To varying degrees, madangnori, changguk, and madangguk aimed to formulate a national theatre and a folk theatre, an objective shared by Oh and Lee. While their objectives and medium seem to overlap with Sohn, Oh and Lee chose vastly different means for executing their aims. This study is an attempt to call attention, in both Korean and international theatre scholarship, to the mapping of contemporary Korean theatre through the lens of Sohn’s work, the madangnori. 2014-06-02 English text The Ohio State University / OhioLINK http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388624592 http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388624592 unrestricted This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.
collection	NDLTD
language	English
sources	NDLTD
topic	Theater History Korean theatre
spellingShingle	Theater History Korean theatre Chon, ChuYoung Joy Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori
author	Chon, ChuYoung Joy
author_facet	Chon, ChuYoung Joy
author_sort	Chon, ChuYoung Joy
title	Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori
title_short	Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori
title_full	Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori
title_fullStr	Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori
title_full_unstemmed	Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori
title_sort	transforming indigenous performance in contemporary south korean theatre: the case of sohn jinch'aek's madangnori
publisher	The Ohio State University / OhioLINK
publishDate	2014
url	http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388624592
work_keys_str_mv	AT chonchuyoungjoy transformingindigenousperformanceincontemporarysouthkoreantheatrethecaseofsohnjinchaeksmadangnori
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Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori

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