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Diasporic P’ungmul in the United States: A Journey between Korea and the United States

Kim, Soo-Jin
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306808044

Abstract Details

2011, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Music.
This study contributes to understanding diaspora and its music cultures by examining the Korean genre of p’ungmul as a particular site of continuous and dynamic cultural socio-political exchange between the homeland and the host society. As practiced in Los Angeles and New York City, this genre of percussion music and dance is shaped by Korean cultural politics, intellectual ideologies and institutions as p’ungmul practitioners in the United States seek performance aesthetics that fit into new performance contexts. This project first describes these contexts by tracing the history of Korean emigration to the United States and identifying the characteristics of immigrant communities in Los Angeles and New York City. While the p’ungmul troupes developed by Korean political refugees, who arrived during the 1980s, show the influence of the minjung cultural movement in Korea, cultural politics of the Korean government also played an important role in stimulating Korean American performers to learn traditional Korean performing arts by sending troupes to the United States. The dissertation then analyzes the various methods by which p’ungmul is transmitted in the United States, including the different methods of teaching and learning p’ungmul—writing verbalizations of instrumental sounds on paper, score, CD/DVD, and audio/video files found on the internet—and the cognitive consequences of those methods. The ways in which immigrants teach and learn p’ungmul have brought standardization to performance practices and enabled Korean American p’ungmul practitioners to learn performance styles currently popular in Korea. This project shows the culture of p’ungmul in the United States to be highly flexible, as Korean American performers utilize different performance instrumentation, repertoire, and aesthetics depending on different audiences, performance venues, aims, and performance contexts. Depending on where they are performing or for whom, they alternate between highly virtuosic and dramatic performance techniques and attempts to re-arrange traditional existing repertoires. In tracing the common performance practices and instrumentation found in different p’ungmul groups in the United States, this project ultimately reveals how different conceptualizations of p’ungmul according to different age groups and across professionals and amateurs affect performance practices and aesthetics.
Udo Will (Advisor)
Danielle Fosler-Lussier (Committee Member)
Chan E. Park (Committee Member)
Music
Korean American music; traditional Korean performing arts in the United States; diaspora

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kim, S.-J. (2011). Diasporic P’ungmul in the United States: A Journey between Korea and the United States [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306808044

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kim, Soo-Jin. Diasporic P’ungmul in the United States: A Journey between Korea and the United States. 2011. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306808044.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kim, Soo-Jin. "Diasporic P’ungmul in the United States: A Journey between Korea and the United States." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306808044

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2011, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.