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

Chon, ChuYoung Joy

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, 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.
Lesley Ferris (Advisor)
Chan E. Park (Committee Member)
Joy Reilly (Committee Member)
323 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Chon, C. J. (2014). Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388624592

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Chon, ChuYoung. Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori. 2014. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388624592.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Chon, ChuYoung. "Transforming Indigenous Performance in Contemporary South Korean Theatre: the Case of Sohn JinCh'aek's Madangnori." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1388624592

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)