Koreana Summer 1989 (English)

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KOREANA Vol. 3/No. 2/1989

KOREANA is published quarterly by INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL SOCIETY OF KOREA. 526, 5-ga, Namdaemunno, Chung-gu, Seoul100-095, C.P.O. Box 2147, Seoul, Korea Telex: INCULKO K27738 Fax: 757-2049 Tel: 752-6170, 753-3463/7 KOREANA was registered as a quarterly magazine with'the Ministry of Culture and Information, Republic of Korea, on August 8, 1987 Registration No. Ma-1033

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48 ·

SINGING IN PRAISE OF FILIAL DEVOTION

By Wolfgang Brude

FEATURE

THE KOREAN PEOPLE'S ATIITUDE TO MUSIC

By Kim Seong-jin

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KORE~S

CH:ANG:

By Yi Bo-hyung

52

HERITAGE

CLASSICAL OPERA

KOREA'S FOLK PAINTING

By Yim Doo-bin

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60

A P:ANSORI GLOSSARY

PEOPLE .

12

By Lee Kyong-hee

KIM SUK-CHA

By Art Space

66

CH:ANG: ITS PROSPECTS AS KOREAN MUSICAL DRAMA

KWON OK-YON

By Kim Young-uk

By Hahn Man-young

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-

70

KOREAN CULTURE AND THE TALE OF SHIMCH'ONG

SPOTLIGHT/DANCE

20

By Kim Tae-won

By Choi Chungho

-

THE 5TH KOREAN DANCE FESTIVAL

75

SHIMCH'ONG-THE EMBODIMENT OF FILIAL PIETY

By Kim Hak-do

REVIEW/DRAMA

24

By Ku Hee-seo

-

ASTUDY OF THE TALE OF SHIMCH'ONG

By Son Jin-chaek

':AND THEN THEY DIE"

76

34

REVIEW/ART

CLOSE-UP

By Kim ln-hwan

HAIN-DOO

CHO SANG-HYON KIM SONG-AE

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38

SAENGCHUM

REVIEW/DANCE

By Paul Mooney

HERITAGE

CREATING THE SACRED SOUND OF DRUM

By Kim Eung-suk

PUBLISHER/PRESIDENT: Kim Seong-jin EDITOR IN CHIEF: S. Chang EDITORIAL BOARD: Choe Chungho Hahn Man-young Rhee Sang-woo Yoo Young-ik ART DIRECTOR: Park Seung-u COVER,

A symbolic representation of the lotus flower carrying Shimch' Ong back to the mortal world after her sojourn in the Kingdom

beneath the sea.

TEXT EDITORS: Paul Mooney Suzanne Crowder Han Julie Pickering

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ART NEWS ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Kim Young-uk (text) Kim Eung-suk (text) Yun Kyung-hee (design) Hyun Kwan-uk (photos)

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SINGING IN PRAISE OF FILIAL DEVOTION

By Kim Seong-jin ge must be equated with wisdom and thus must command respect.

Dear Koreana readers.

The foregoing by no means is a direct quotation from The Analects of Confucius. Nevertheless, in the eyes of a long parade of Confucian scholars, it amply reflects the basic philosophy of the sage who lived more than two millenniums ago.

The question is, if we in Korea and for that matter people elsewhere around the world today live up to that noble spirit. Alas, the virtue seems to be gradually on the decline in our country, though it continues to delight in calling itself the latterday mecca of Confucianism.

In spite of, or even because of, the particular fact, the main body of this issue is dedicated to celebrating

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a time-honored opera Korean style, and for good reason. The theme of the glorious drama is what is supposed to be universal but what in fact has for long been gradually declining: filial devotion.

Yes, filial devotion. You might ask if there ever were an opera mounted on that category of themes. As far as I know, the answer here again is negative. And that would make this opera, whose genre is called ch'angguk and whose title is "The Tale of Shimch'ong," amount to something downright unique to our people, another subject that clearly justifies a searching attention on the part of all friends and students of Korea.

As a matter of fact, the selection of this exceptional subject is timed to coincide with the upcoming tour of East Europe by the finest of our

ch'angguk companies. Indeed, ch'angguk has never before been "exported" from Korea. And why do we do so now to, of all corners of the world, East Europe where among theatergoers the knowlege about things Korean would not precisely be deep?

We ourselves posed that question many times over. In the end, the decision was to go ahead with the original plan and have "The Tale of Shimchong" staged this fall in both Hungary and Yugoslavia. The reason behind the decision is not exactly complicated. In that portion of the world with its towering theatrical tradition, we theorized, nothing less than the finest in our traditional theater would be acceptable.

I personally have attended the performance of this opera a number of times. Each time, I left the theater peculiarly elated. I flatter myself that I have come to know the reason why. In the moving finale of the production, the blind father, thanks to his endlessly devoted daughter Simchong, has his sight magically restored.

Why at that very moment is the father overwhelmed by the violent waves of emotionalism? Sure enough, he perceives for the first time in his trying life the breathtaking beauty of his own daughter. But of course he beholds something even more moving in the person of Shimch'ong. That, I presume, is the undying glories of love that must unite all members of the family of man - humanity.

No matter how different the language, the costume or even the nature of music, that, I believe, is a motif that can immediately win sympathy and identification wherever people live. For filial affection is something that could still be called at once beautiful and forever.+ Mr. Kim Seong-jin is president of the International Cultural Society of Korea.

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CH~G:

Korea's Classical Opera

By Yi Bo-hyung

h'ang is the most recently developed of traditional Korean drama forms. Yes, like most other genres of the time-honored Korean theater, it combines singing, dancing, acting and narrations to make it a complete dramatic experience.

There is a clear-cut difference between Ch'ang and t'alchu'm, the masked dance. In ch'ang, singing plays the dominant role, almost like the case of Western opera, while in the masked dance, the dance is central. The difference, though, deserves keen attention.

T'alchu'm has grown out of dances originally presented by masked performers in religious ceremonies. In consequence it has turned into a type of folk drama with a vigorous emphasis on dance.

Ch'ang, on the other hand, can be categorized as a takeoff from what in our country is known as p'ansori, an exceedingly popular format ln which a single performer in turn portrays numerous dramatic personae. But the main characteristics of

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P'ansori are there. Ch'ang is essentially a vocal performance, though there are more than one performer.

Small wonder some scholars call P'ansori the mother of Ch'ang P'ansori if I may repeat myself, is a narrative form of musical drama.

In it the vocalist, with words and gestures presents a drama - alone.

His or her performance is given to the beat of a drummer known as kosu.

Now that we have the drummer's nomenclature specified, I might as well give you the commonly used roster of names for P'ansori performers: kagaek, kasu, kwangdae and pae-u. Confusing? I hope not.

P'ansori like nearly all great forms ¡ of art, is a complicated business.

Kagaek, in most cases, hailed from the background of ch'ang-u, the social grouping of people who used to make their living out of performing acrobatics and dramas, beside music and dances. Hence the notable fact that in P'ansori we must not only appreciate music. It's a dramatic form as well.

P'ansori came into being in the early or the middle part of the Chason period (1392-1910). It was created by those Ch'ang-u troupes.

You see, it's their ancestors who were often seen singing, dancing or giving ceremonial plays at countryside festivals during the Three Kingdoms period (57 B.C.-A.D. 668) We actually know very little about the circumstances under which Ch'ang-u performers came to develop their particular form of theater.

Here once more we have to talk of those masks. The reason? Simply because from way back in history, ceremonial plays were seldom complete without the use of masks for countryside festivals in this part of the world. Thus we may safely presume that Ch'ang-u artists wore them too in presenting their ceremonial plays. As a matter of fact, these people at one time or another were called kwangdae or yonhuija, an expression that originally meant masked.

And masks were not to the liking of the establishment in the Chason

period. And this should surprise nobody. At this time, Confucianism was the basic political philosophy and in the light of it, masks were never Comme il jaut, presumably because you need not hide your face when doing or saying the right thing.

Out went the masks from ch'ang-u artists when they performed for gevernment-sponsored festivals or at the gatherings of high-ranking people. Here, thereupon, you have to swallow another highly technical term, Kwangdae. Those dramas without masks were called kwangdae comedies. From this point on in our annals of ¡drama, kwangdae came to mean performers, masked or unmasked; Kwangdae comedies were the thing for high-society banquets and festivals. But the upper crust back then was stiff or supposed to be stiff because they had to do everything in the light of Confucianism. Which of course made it hard for this art form to thrive. The comedies soon faded away.

Now finally came p'ansori.

Ch'ang-u troupes had come up with recitative songs that had a kick to them: amusing dialogues and gestures. These then were added to their acrobatic repertoire that included tightrope walking, tumbling, and diabolo - plus, of course, dancing.

To begin with, p'ansori centered on comical themes because pecisely such themes were what the bulk of their audience, the common people, had wanted. Sure enough, the diction for p'ansori then was obviously popular and so the genre thrived.

Around two hundred years ago, p'ansori was already good enough to a new Clientele; the upper crust. On a growing scale, members of the Establishment came to enjoy it. And why not? Another mark of development was registered. P'ansori kwangdae (unmasked) began accommodating the tastes of high society by borrowing from the belles-letters.

Removed too was that old popular diction that went big with the populace. That was not all. Incorpo-

rated also were musical elements unique to a varity of regions and social classes. This kicked off a variety of cadences and meters.

What now happened would be something inevitable. The accommodation for the upper class led to the eventual death of practically all of the comical numbers of the previous Period. The outcome in a sense is startling. The p'ansori repertoire now consists of only five major numbers: Ch'unhyangga (about the triumph of love), Simch'ongga (of filial affection, the original to the classical Korean opera, The Tale of Shim'chong), Himgbuga (a tale of two siblings), Sugungga (a saga of a palace under the sea) and Chokpyokka (a yarn about fabled Chinese warriors).

Still and all, the earthy original characteristics of p'ansori even today forcefully make themselves felt, one reason behind its undying appeal among all walks of life in Korea.

The melodic diction of p'ansori is varied. At first, the tempo was leisurely. By the late Choson period it came to adopt some of the fastest and the slowest cadences known to traditional Korean music.

The original mode of singing p'ansori was quite similar to that of the folk music of Korea's southwestern region, particularly that of the Cholla area, because p'ansori was initially created by ch'ang-u from that region. The folk songs of this region, like Western music written in a minor key, tended to communicate a very sad feeling. As the genre developed to suit the tastes of the upper classes of society, the modes of folk music from other regions of Korea as well as those found in the lyrical kagok enjoyed by the aristocracy were incorporated into the p'ansori genre, providing peaceful elements and joyful moods as well as very grand musical modes.

In the latter part of the Choson Period, a theory fusing or harmonizing the dramatic content of p'ansori's narrative elements and the musical nature of its songs developed.

According to this theory, the p'ansori

we know today proceeds at a very slow pace in leisurely passages or scenes portraying lyrical content, while songs are sung at a medium tempo in narrative passages. In active scenes which involve dancing or walking, a more rapid cadence is used, and in very tense or active sections, the tempo of the singing is extremely rapid.

As in Western music, a minor key is used to portray sadness while major keys which give a bright and happy flavor are used in humorous scenes or when a ,heroic act or dignified event is taking place.

Originally ch'ang-u were exclusively men. Thus all p'ansori kwangdae in the Choson Period were male.

In the case of kagok favored by the upper classes, there were women kagaek who alternated with male performers. In the latter part of the Choson Period, however, female kagaek learned p'ansori and were favorably received by the aristocratic classes during their performances at festivals. From this timeonward, female kwangdae grew in numbers.

Today female performers of p'ansori are more common than male performers.

In the final years of the Choson kingdom, a new class of urban dwellers developed with the modernization of society and the influx of foreigners. Innovative forms of entertainment were needed in response to the growth of this new class. Up until this time ch'ang-u and wandering performers had entertained crowds in village plazas, and p'ansori . had also been performed in public squares or in the drawing rooms of the local gentry. In the 19th century, however, theaters employing ch'angu and wandering entertainers sprang up in the city both because drawing rooms were too small to accommodate large audiences and because it was impossible to charge admission at outdoor performances. Several modern theaters were built in Seoul at the beginning of this century, staging performances by both ch'ang-u and p'ansori masters called myongch'ang.

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The p'ansori singer presents his performance to the beat of a drummer known as kosu.

Because p'ansori was performed by a single vocalist, however, it was unsuited to a large theater and so a new musical genre was needed. During the late Choson period, Chinese troupes staged traditional Chinese opera in Seoul, and Korean ch'ang-u followed this example, dividing up the different roles found in traditional p'ansori among several vocalists and thus creating a new musical genre, ch'angguk, or ch'ang theater. In a certain sense, the ch'ang-u were reviving the comic kwangdae comedies of the midChoson era. But in fact, the legacy of that older form was relatively unimportant when compared to that of p'ansori which has developed so much since that time. And so ch'ang could not help but emulate the techniques found in p'ansori.

In the early 19th century, ch'ang was performed in a theater without any stage decorations with the roles of the original p'ansori piece allocated to male and female kagaek.

Because many of the songs from the 8

original p'ansori were narrative, when the parts were distributed to individual performers in the ch'ang, a new leading role or narrator called the ch'angja was created.

Around this time, a royal theater called the Won-gaksa was created employing its own contract ch'ang actors and actresses. These performers were originally p'ansori myongch'ang or masters, because at the inception of ch'ang there were no professional ch'ang actors or actresses as the genre had only recently branched off from the p'ansori form. Ch'ang was successful and very popular. Not only were vocalists skilled in the performance of ch'ang songs, but because they were descendants of the eady ch'ang-u, they were well versed in acting and gestures, as well as dancing, acrobatics and tricks.

In addition to performing traditional p'ansori works such as Ch'unhyangga and Shimch'ongga, the ch'ang-u company at Won-gaksa also staged original ch'ang such as Ch'oi-

pyongdu T'aryong. Around this time, the Won-gaksa was closed and the company dispersed. The members of the companyformed smaller ones called hyomnyulsa and performed popular songs and sungmu (a Buddhist dance) as well as short ch'ang. Around 1910, ch'ang was staged in theaters again, and thanks to the influence of Western drama, stage backdrops and props were used .

There was no distinct tradition of ch'ang performance; and so ch'ang actors simply adapted the modes of traditional dance and p'ansori, with no conscious development of their own distinct stage design, props, sostumes, makeup, songs, dance, acting or gestures. B ~cause there was great public inter ost in ch'ang as simple entertainment, the modes of expression of the ch'ang-u themselves deteriorated.

In the 1930s, stage design, makeup and other elements were influenced

by Western realism, and producers of Western-style theater came to

produce ch'ang as well, d istorting the speech and gestures, plac ing the emphasis on acting and reducing the fu nction of song. The power of d irectors and script writers grew as the composers of songs and choreographers sli pped into the background .

Ch'ang reached its height between 1930 and the 1950s when many p'ansori were converted into ch'ang.

In addition, scores of origina l ch'ang were created, many based on historical tales and myths or stories of great heroes or legendary figures, emphasizing popular themes.

In the 1950s, a fem ale ch'ang troupe called the Yosonggukkukdan (Women's National Theater Group) was formed, sweeping the ch'ang community, but because of the subsequent mushrooming of simi lar groups and the resulting upsurge of lav ish d:mce, choral arrangements and acrobatics, ch'ang itself deteriorated and by the late 1950s lost out in the competition with motion pictures and Western-style theater. As a result, most ch'anl!, troupes were disbanded.

In the ea rly 1960s, the National Ch'ang Troupe at the National ¡Theater in Seoul was established to preserve the ch'ang genre, and this group remains the life force of ch'ang today. Since the mid-1960s, a committee established in affiliation with the National Theater has sought to fix or stabilize ch'ang as an art form . Because today's ch'ang utilizes the modes of performance which originated in p'ansori, only the music of ch'ang has been fully fixed.

As a result, the dramatic content of the script follows that of the narrative of the original p'ansori.

On the other hand, as there is no fixed standard for the stage design, makeup, script, acting, gestures, dance or acrobatics found in ch'ang, scholars have sought to establish an archetype of ch'ang's unique nature, but the absence of legitimate producers, scenarists and directors together with the lack of a consciousness of this issue on the part of ch'ang performers has thwarted this

The p'ansori master renders both lyrical narration and songs.

effort .

In the 1970s, outdoor performances of ch'ang were common, and in the early 1980s, ch'ang with an emphasis on p'ansori singing were produced in a reaction to the earlier trend. More recently, we have also witnessed the staging of modern ch'ang which .borrow from contemporary Western drama .

As a result of this long history of trial and error, a small minority of Korea's ch'ang performers and experts are calling for a search for ch'ang's own unique style and mode of performance by starting aga in at ch'ang's roots in p'ansori, forming a broad range of distinct ch'ang-u troupes.

Because ch'ang grew out of the traditional performing art of p'an-

sari, and p'ansori itself is the offspring ¡of ch'ang-u entertainment, ch'ang's technique must develop on the basis of the work of the ch'ang-u.

There are, in fact , many ch'ang performers who are capable of this.

Therefore, rather than depending on the efforts of theatrical directors who take the ch'ang form lightly and distort its native characteristics, ch'ang specialists must cultivate their own talents in the tradition of the ch'ang-u, and develop ch'ang's own unique theaters, stage design, props, makeup, scripts, songs, . accompaniment, dance, acting, gestures and movements.+ The writer is an expert advisor to the Cultural Properties Maintenance Office and a Korean classical music critic.

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Ch'ang-u

Aniri

An expression derived from Chinese characters referring to an entertainer performing songs, witty remarks, tricks, etc. sani and kwangdae ~re pure Korean terms for the same type of entertainer.

Aniri means words spoken by the kagaek during a p'ansori performance. A kwangdae who entertained the audience with humorous words was thus called an aniri-kwangdae.

Aniri was used to achieve a more sincere expression and was sometimes sung in a freeflowing melody ad-lib which was called soricho aniri or ch'angio aniri to distinguish it from the standard aniri.

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Kagaek Originally this term referred to singers of quiet and elegant songs such as kagok, a sophisticated lyrica l genre, kasa, a type of libretto, and siio, an indigenous Korean popular song, but later the term was used to describe specialists in p'ansori as well.

'P'ANSORI' GLOSSARY,

Kwangdae Historically, entertainers who performed using masks were called kwangdae but later the use of this term spread to describe all kinds of entertainers. Specialists in p'ansori were called sori-kwangdae, tightrope (chul) walkers chulkwangdae, masked performers t'alkwangdae and comedians oritkwangdae.

There were also various expressions used to refer to different types of p'ansori entertainers.

For example, the term daekwang was used in reference to the illustrious performers of p'ansori, and the expression kukch'ang was reserved only for the greatest daekwang who were well known and respected throughout the land.

Ttomngkwangdae were local entertainers who learned and practiced their craft on their own in their home region, while sangt'uchatch'im were young local artists who were just beginning to earn a name for themselves in their native region.

Kwangdae boksaek Originally ch'ang-u wore ch'ang-ot , a long coat-like garment, and a straw hat with a peacock feather stuck in it, and held a fan in their hands, but p'ansori kagaek wore a kat, a Korean hat made of horsehair, together with the ch'ant-ot and fan.

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Dosop This expression also refers to a free-flowing melody. When sung with the accompaniment of a drum, the drum beat a fixed rhythm but the song had its own independent cadence, providing an interesting contrast. Dosop, soricho aniri and ch'angio aniri all referred to the same style of singing.

Gestures Gestures made by the kagaek in a p'ansori performance were called pallim, norumsae and sach'e. Pallim originally referred to the dancelike gestures and movements of the performer.

Norumsae referred to the appearance of the performer, his costumes, mevements and acting.

Sach'e alluded to both the personal appearance and movements of the performer. ¡

Exclamations

This expression referred to the drummer who accompanied the singer. A wide variety of drums were used in traditional Korean music but the term kosu was usually reserved for reference to the drummer playing the soribuk (literally the p'ansori drum) who accompanied the p'ansori kagaek.

The kosu sat to the left behind the kagaek, wearing a long Korean coat and kat, beating time with his drum and making exclamations which accented the singing of the main performer.

Exclamations from the drummer or the audience made in praise of the performer (e.g. olssiku, u-i chohchi) are called ch'uimsae.

These exclamations were always made in a traditional accent and in time with the music.

Sometimes the drummer would substitute ch'uimsae for the beat of the drum.

P'an, Madang and Pat'ang These three expressions a re terms of measure used to refer to any continuous action or event and are used in the discussion of traditional vocal music to describe the uninterrupted nature of p'ansori :-"hich is one long succession of connected songs rather than a performance of many unrelated pieces.

Sori

Doniim

Traditional Korean vocal music can be divided into several categories. The term nome was used to refer to the refined ensemble music en joyed by the upper class literati and included kagok, kasa , and siio. The expression akchang described the music of the royal court performed during gatherings for state guests and roya l ceremonies.

Vocal music performed in the rest of society was usually called sari of wh ich there were several specific varieties. The term p'ansori referred to the folk songs sung by kwangdae.

Sangsasori was the sari sung by farmers when they transplanted rice seed lings, while kosasori were the songs sung by itinerant musicians who roamed the countryside. Chitsori and hutsori were two expressions used in reference to the songs sung by Buddhist monks.

In p'ansori, sari refers only to a melody sung in time with a beat and does not apply to spoken expressions.

Donum is the expression used to describe the passages or sections of a p'ansori piece which were the forte of a particular p'ansori master.

Padi This expression also refers to the specialty of a particular p'ansori master but applies to a whole p'ansori opera rather than simply a section or donum.

Yup'a This term refers to the various schools of

p'ansori which developed in different regions throughout Korea. Sometimes yup'a were also called che, and so the school of p'ansori from the eastern Cholla region was called Dongp'yonche (Eastside School), the school from the western part of Cholla was called Sop'yonche (Westside School) and the school which grew out

of the Kyonggi and Ch'ungch'ong provinces was called Chunggoche.

used in lyrical scenes.

magnificent event was taking place, or when a heroic figure was introduced.

Chungjungmori Dongp'yonche The Dongp'yonche school originated in the eastern part of the Cholla region around Chonju, lmshil and Namwon and later spread to the Chongup and Kochang areas. The Dongp'yonche was known for its free and open style, often started in a reserved and dignified manner and ended quite abruptly. The use of brusque cries was common in this school.

Sop'yonche This school of p'ansori developed in the western part of the Cholla region around Hamp'yong, Naju, Haenam, Kangjin and Kwangju , later spreading to the south near Posong. Sop'yonche p'ansori was very elaborate, usually starting ¡ out softly and ending in a lingering manner. Guttural sounds from the throat were often used in p'ansori from this region.

A medium beat, chungjungmori can be played at a very rapid 12-quarters speed but was usually performed in a slow 12-eights time.

This rhythm was most often found in scenes with dancing, strutting or crying because it had the cadence of normal dance music.

Chajinmori A more rapid beat, chajinmori was played at a rapid 12-eights speed in tense, dramatic scenes or when several items were being organized at once.

Hwimori Hwimori was the fastest beat in p'ansori, four-four time used in scenes with a lot of bustling activity.

P'yongjo P'yongjo refers to a peaceful melody which grew out of the kagok tradition.

Kyemyonjo A sad melody, kyemyonjo evolved from shamanic chants and folk songs from the Cholla region and was most commonly used in sad passages or when female characters appeared.

Kyongdiiriim Kyongdurum was a happy melody which originated in the shamanic chants. and folk songs of the Kyonggi region. It was found in passages where an unhappy person was being comforted or when a rambunctious woman was being reprimanded.

Otmori Sollongje

Originating in the area around Kongju, Sosan and P'yongt'aek, this school ofp'ansori is characterized by its clear, pure sound.

Otmori was a variegated beat which combined a very rapid two-thirds cadence with a ten-eights beat. It was most commonly used when a mysterious figure was introduced or in violent or exciting scenes.

Chinyang

Otjungmori

Puch'imsae

The slowest rhythm found in p'ansori, chinyang refers to units in six-eights time which were also sometimes called kak. Because the chinyang rhythm was so slow, it was usually found in very leisurely or lyrical scenes.

The least used cadence in p'ansori, otjungmori was a six-quarters beat used when an event was being explained or when a passage was repeated.

Puch'imsae was a technique used to vary rhythm. There were a number of different types of puch'imsae which were used to link melodies or alter the beat.

Ucho

Sikimsae

One of several meters found in p'ansori, ucho was a solemn melody which developed in the process of evolution of kagok melodies for use in p'ansori. Ucho was most commonly found in peaceful passages or scenes where some

Sikimsaewas a decorative form used to promote the flow in the pitch used in p'ansori There were several different types of sikimsae and a p'ansori master was judged by his or her command of these techniques.

Chunggoche

Chungmori This beat was the second slowest rhythm after chinyang. The 12-quarters beat was an average speed and so was generally found in narrative sections although it was sometimes

A bright and energetic tune which grew out of the songs of palanquin bearers, this melody was usually used in passages where soldiers or servants called out or swaggered vigorously.

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••

Its Prospects as Korean Musical Drama

By Hahn Man-young

h'ang is a form of musical drama which has grown out of p'ansori. P'ansori is dramatic vocal music performed to the beat of a drum by a single vocalist. The singer begins with a tan -ga, a song composed of short notes, and then tells a story through music, aniri (words spoken by the singer between songs) and gestures, provoking both tears and laughter from the audience.

The term kwangdae refers to the performers of p'ansori. The kwangdae wear a traditional Korean overcoat called a turumagi and a horsehair hat or kat, and sing holding a fan in their hand. The drummer sits off to one side of the kwangdae, beating time with his drum and punctuating the music with exclamations (ch'uimsae) .

Like operatic arias, the sari or songs which make up a p'ansori are performed to a regular beat which may be slow (chinyang), medium (chungmori), somewhat faster (chungjungmori), fast (chajinmori), or rapid (hwimori).

Aniri is spoken dialogue during which the drummer beats the drum and inserts exclamations. The beat is generally in 4:4 meter, and thus the aniri can be compared to the recitativo seco of Western opera.

The singer makes gestures or pallim using his or her fan as a prop.

The exclamations of the drummer, such as olssu, chohchi, chohta, or olsigu, are usually made at the end of phrases or clauses in the aniri or sori to heighten the audience's enjoyment.

It is said that the melodic roots of p'ansori lie in the shamans' kut or exorcism rituals which gradually developed into this genre of musical

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drama, but the performance of p'ansori as an independent art form probably originated around the time of King Sukchong (r. 1674-1729) judging from the fact that some of the gre~t performers of p'ansori such as Ha Un-dam, Ch'oe Son-dal and U Ch'un-dae lived around that era.

In the 18th century, 12 different p'ansori came into existence and many famous performers were born, while the 19th century was probably the golden age of the art form. All 12 of these p'ansori were handed down through history by word of mouth and so there was no written record or score for these works. In fact, all that remains is the transcriptions of six of the original 12 works, including Ch'unhyangga, T'oepyolga, Shimch'ongga, Pakhungboga, Chokpyokgaand Pyon-gangsoeka, made

by Shin Chae-hyo (1812-1884), a patron of p'ansori. Yi Son-yu's 0 -gachonjip (A Collection of Five P'ansori) published in 1933 codifies five of these works with the exclusion of Pyon-gangsoega, all of which are performed today. Ch'angguk, or ch'ang theater, is an outgrowth of the solo p'ansori, and is similar to the Peking Opera of China and Japan's kabuki theater.

The first performance of ch'ang was a production of Ch'unhyangga (The Tale of Ch'unhyang) which was performed at the Royal Theatre in the fall of 1903. The great p'ansori performer Kang Yong-hwan translated the story into ch'ang form.

At that time, there was, in Seoul's Chinatown district, a theater which specialized in Peking Opera performed by famous performers brought from China. Many Korean kwangdae were interested in these operas performed by a large cast of

characters and often went to the theater to watch. Kang Yong-hwan went whenever he had a chance, and according to Yi Tong-paek (18661947), a great p'ansori singer himself, Kang got his idea for the transposition of Ch'unhyangga into ch'ang form from his frequent visits to the Peking Opera. Because the roles in this production were played by some of the greatest names in p'ansori at' that time, the National Theater (Won-gaksa) was standing room only for every performance, despite the relatively high ticket price of 20 chon.

At this premiere of Ch'unhyangga, the stage was completely bare except for a light bulb which lighted the stage and a white cloth which was hung as a backdrop (this backdrop was the same as that used in Peking Opera). The performers wore clothes and makeup befitting their individual roles. But they all carried fans as was the custom in p'ansori, fanning themselves vigorously as they sang.

The fan was originally a symbol of the yangban or aristocratic literati, and so when all the performers came on stage waving their fans, it was quite amusing. For this reason, the performance was not really a drama but rather a kind of p'ansori in stereo. The prodution was a big hit, and the following year (1904) Kang staged Shimch'ongga in ch'ang form, adding another triumph to his repertoire.

The dramatization of ch'ang which we see today began in 1935.

The Chason song-ak yon-guhoe (Chosen Vocal Music Research Association) staged a performance of Ch'unhyangjonarranged by Chong Chong-yo!. Because the arranger accepted the advice of Kim Yong-

Simch'ong is returned to the mortal world from the palace beneath the sea in a giant lotus flower.

song by embellishing the work to suit modern tastes and adding new lines here and there, together with a musical accompaniment and sound effects (Previously, only a drumbeat had been used), ch'ang theater broke away from its reliance on p'ansori and moved in the direction of musical drama, the form in which we find it today.

The team of Chong Chong-yo! and Kim Yong-song went on to translate a total of seven p'ansori pieces into the ch'ang format, including

Hungboga, Shimch'ongga, Pyolchupuchon, Paebichangjon, Suk-yongnangjachon and Onggochipchon, in addition to Ch'unhyangjon .

In the years that followed, numerous ch'ang theater groups emerged, especially in the 1950s and '60s when many exclusively female groups were formed and a wide variety of new works (mostly historical dramas) were staged. During the 1960s, however, the female ch'ang craze gradually waned with the

influx of foreign films, particularly from Hollywood and because of the generally crude quality of the ch'ang dramas themselves. Audiences soon grew weary of the cheap sentimentalism of such groundless historical dramas.

The formation of the National Ch'angguk Company in 1962 was an epochal event in the history of ch'ang. P'ansori master and gifted ch'ang virtuoso Kim Yon-su (19071974) wielded his talents in the composition of librettos, stage direction 13

and even in performing. Thus, contributing to revolutionary developments in the world of ch'ang drama which had been stangnant following the departure of Chong Chong-yo!.

Since 1978, Ho Kyu, director of the National Theater from 1981 to 1988 and specialist in theater production, has taken on the composition of librettos and production of ch'ang performances. In addition to productions of the five great standards, Ho has also produced many new works as well.

Because ch'ang drama is an outgrowth of p'ansori, it has never had a standardized staging technique. In p'ansori, the singer portrays both characters and scenes with his or her voice on an empty, unadorned stage.

Thus the experience is aural, rather than visual, permitting the audience to use their imagination freely.

When ch'ang was first introduced, it was specifically designed to give the audience a chance to see the gathering of many big-name kwangdae on one stage, and was not intended as a dramatization (in the sense of Western-style drama) of the p'ansori format. In the 1930s when ch'ang was dramatized, the staging and production of these works was neither symbolic nor standardized, but rather simply realistic, perhaps because of the New Theater Movement (the staging of the standard repertory of Western theater) which had already swept the theatrical scene.

For this reason, the staging varied with the producer, and because staging was very similar to that of Western opera, popular expectations of individual producers could be great. From this point of view, Korean ch'ang is quite different from Japanese kabuki and noh and Chinese Peking Opera.

The stage used in Japan's kabuki theater is highly stylized. First of all, there is a two-meter wide pier-like projection called a hanamichi which juts out toward the audience at a right angle from the left of the main stage. The hanamichi is a device used for the entrances and exits of the main characters of the drama, permitting them to pass right through the audience.

All the actors in kabuki are men, including female characters who are 14

called onnagata. The stage is extremely formalized, and the staging for each individual drama is fixed.

The performers act only in mime and spoken dialogue using a codified dramatic vernacular rather than standard spoken Japanese. And no singing is used.

The movements of the performers are also extraordinarily stylized. The performers on stage are accompanied by a musical ensemble comprised of the noh-kan (a small flute), the ko-tsuzumi (a small drum), the o-zutsumi (a hand drum), the taiko (a large drum beat with two sticks), and the samisen, as well as a chorus.

The melody is carried by the samisen alone, and the remaining instruments are used for sound effects.

No stage sets are used in Peking Opera nor is there any curtain.

There are four key elements in this genre: songs, mime, spoken dialogue and dance, and like Korean ch'ang, singing is the heart of the drama.

Because there is no backdrop or stage decoration, the performers' mime-like gestures are extremely symbolic. For example, the opening of a door, the climbing of stairs, the rowing of a boat and horseback riding are all portrayed through the symbolic movements of the actors.

The characters in Peking Opera can also be divided into four main categories. The first of these, sheng (Chinese pronunciation), is the main role of the honorable hero. This charaCter has a long beard and speaks in a low voice. The second category, tan, is that of the female lead. The third and fourth categories (zheng and wu) are both villainous roles using masks. The make-up for all these characters is highly symbolic as are the costumes. For example, the entry on stage of a person with many flags on his back symbolizes a large army. The dancing, particulary that of the male characters, is extremely acrobatic with as many as 36 different feats performed in some large fighting scenes. Peking Opera is performed to the music of a Chinese fiddle, lute, a shanai, cymbals, etc.

In Korean ch'ang, neither make-up nor masks are used to accentuate characters who perform in the piece, and both male and female singers

participate. Originally, ch'ang, like p'ansori, was accompanied by a single drummer, but since 1935, other instruments such as the ajaeng (a seven-stringed bowed zither), the haegum (two-stringed fiddle) , the taegum (a large horizontal flute), the p'iri (oboe), the kayagum (12stringed plucked zither), etc. have been used to accompany the singers.

More recently, music for use as an accompaniment has been composed separately.

The main repertory for ch'ang is the '"Five Great Works" comprised of Ch'unhyangga, Shimch'ongga, Sugungga, Hungboga and Chokpyokga, but many new works have been composed.

When a new work is composed, first a librettist writes the libretto, and then a famous singer composes the music to fit the narrative. This process is called "affixing or gluing the music to the words" (um-ak-ul put-chinda), rather than "composing music." The newly "affixed" music is not a new tune, but rather is an existing p'ansori standard with simply the text changed. Thus, while many "new" librettos have been created, they are not particularly fresh because the music itself is not new.

There are two main reasons for this.

First, the singers have learned their art through the transmission of an oral tradition and do not know how to read music, a condition which limits their ability to compose new tunes. Second, there are very few composers. who truly understand the idiom of p'ansori. In recent years, ho~ever, the number of university students rna joring in the singing of P'ansori has increased, rousing our hopes for many new and innovative compositions.

Ch'ang is a genre of traditional music which holds great charm for the Korean people. Hopefully, ch'ang will soon journey on the road to innovation, making it a world class art form much like China's Peki~g Opera, Japan's kabuki, the operas of Europe and the American musical.+ Hahn Man-young is a professor of Korean classical music at Seoul National University.

KOREAN CULTURE AND THE TALE OF

SHIMCH'ONG

By Choi Chungho

n a visit to Korea, Western residents of Japan often say that they can really relax here.

Once in Seoul, they also say that they feel as though they could finally breathe freely again. A man I used to know, a German company employee, once told me that when he saw Koreans speaking with each other freely and openly, even in front of foreigners, he felt as if he were once more meeting real human beings - and that he regained his humanity.

For those foreigners having difficulty to adapt themselves to the exceedingly stylized Japanese culture and the thoroughgoing rules of etiquette, a visit to Korea means a great chance to open up their heart. They are comfortable with the naturalness and spontaneity of the Korean people, They are happy too with the absence of the rigidity of custom that governs life in Nippon.

Witness how the Koreans and Japanese sit. Both squat on floors because of the structural similarity of their houses. But the Koreans do so far more comfortably than the Japanese. The Japanese love to drink tea with formality. Not the Koreans.

Korea has theatrical performers called kwangdae. On and off stage they walk like normal people - not like those kabuki players who seem dedicated to strutting their way back and forth like peacocks.

In lifestyle too, the two peoples form a study in contrast. In Korea, simple or natural is beautiful. In Japan that might be the other way around.

The gap in the two cultures is also evident in landscape architecture.

Consider what Professor Chong

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Dong-o, a Korean specialist in comparative landscape architecture, has to say. With the Korean garden, he says, trees are not artificially bent or trimmed but are left in their natural state. This applies to gardens in private dwellings and public places as well.

Korean gardens often have something unthinkable in Japan: open or empty areas. This, though, generates the feeling of openness. With gardens in Japan, smallness is the thing. They dig ponds trying to evoke the effect of a lake. They build a small mound of earth and call it tsukiyama (literally, making a mountain). Artificiality is everywhere in the Japanese garden.

Even the foliage of trees is "sculpted;' a vogue created since the opening of the Rinsen Park in Edo (now Tokyo) during the two and a half centuries of the feudal Tokugawa period.

With these peculiar features, Japanese gardens remind some observers of French gardens. Korean gardens, on the other hand, might look akin to English ones. The basic idea with both styles is plain. In Korea as in England, it is that gardens must be part of mother nature.

The distance is about as great between Korean and Chinese cultures. Korea sticks out as a peninsula from the Chinese mainland. In consequence, Korea through many centuries maintained close ties with China in politics, economy and culture. Still and all, Korea's culture is quite different from that of China.

Today as yesterday, that difference proves too much to the Korean visitor to China. Once on a tour of Chinese museums and monuments, he is always overwhelmed by the

brilliance of Chinese objets d'art, architecture, even dress accessories and handicraft - let alone those relentlessly gorgeous foods. He is dumbfounded by the extremes of Chinese culture: so big, so small, so numerous, so elaborate, so varied, so lavish.

Of course, it's all too much to the visitor from Korea. Generally speaking, he cannot endure it for longer than five days. And now he begins to experience that old drowsiness that hits you after a Gargantuan meal.

Why? Because our visitor, after all, is a citizen of the Land of Morning Calm. Chinese culture is noisy to him, even deafening. That drives him crazy. The "superdimensional" culture of China is hard indeed for him to swallow and digest.

All at once, our tourist is stricken by a serious case of homesickness.

Suddenly he misses home where everything is in the right amount and the .right size. When confronted with the Chinese culture that transcends the human scale in so many ways, the Koreans for once appreciate the beauty and magnificence of their own culture, which is warm and based on the human scale.

Our art historian Kim Chul-soon had this observation to make: "Down the ages, Korean artisans and artists have responded to the advent of foreign cultures with almost superhuman efforts. Artisans in Korea during the Three Kingdoms Period (57 B.C.A.D. 668), did marvelously well in mastering China's techniques of Buddhist sculpture. Korea's magnificent celadon ceramics in the Koryo Period (918-1392) was the result of a defiance in the face of ceramics from Sung Dynasty China.

Take for another example the best of 15

A variety of postures and movements are possible in p'ansori, here a p'ansori master takes a sitting position.

our woodwork. They are scornful of their overly decorative Chinese counterparts. The tradition in Korean architecture is the same story all over again. Its features are critical of the neglect of functions in Chinese architecture."

Just as people in Europe, when tired of the Baroque or Rococo, turn to the Gothic or Romanesque, we find, when fed up with the Chinese Baroque, a sense of peace and calm in traditional Korean architecture or Choson-Period (1392-1910) pieces of furniture with all their marks of simple functionalism and refined beauty.

I now must talk of the Korean writing system, called hangul. First we adopted Chinese ideographs. But our ancestors soon recognized incoveniences posed in writing the Korean language with Chinese ideographs. Thus under the reign of Korean King Sejong in the mid-15th century we developed the hangul system of writing. The king was the moving force behind the creation.

He had perceived the difficulties cofronting common people who did not know Chinese characters. He 16

realized there had to be a more efficient way of writing. Hence the hangul system, something altogether different from the Chinese system.

In fact, hangul, with its phonetic symbols for 10 vowels and 14 consonants, is regarded by many linguists as the most scientific of writing systems possible.

It was common people or the "masses," who King Sejong felt were so pitiful because they did not know Chinese writing.

It was these common people who read novels written in hangul while the upper class yangban of the Choson Period read Chinese tomes and wrote their poems and letters in Chinese characters. While Choson court painters, or yangban artists, were painting Chinese style landscapes or ascetic paintings, artists of common birth were pioneering the glorious minhwa or the folk painting genre, a purely Korean form of folk art which depicted the world i,n a popular and comic idiom. These common people were the same artisans whose Choson era woodwork has caught the eye of sophisticated collectors in the United States in

modern times. And it would be no exaggeration to say that almost all of Korea's traditional performing arts were the creations of common people. In addition, in Choson society where the order of social status was so rigid, it was the ch'onin or the pariah class, the lowest of the low in that society, who became the kwangdqe or chaein performers and entertained all society.

Thus we must all realize that it was common people who developed and maintained our nation's cultural identity.

The religion of the common people is Korean shamanism which pursues the mundane happiness of man's everyday existence. Although Buddhism was adopted as the state religion during the Unified Shilla (668-918) and Koryo (918-1392) Periods and Confucianism was the essential creed during the Choson Period, common people embraced shamanism for thousands of years with little regard for the advanced religions of the upper classes. That was not all. As theologian Ryu Dongshik has noted, they changed the religious face of Korea by

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A scene in "The Tale of Shimch'ong" depicting a shaman or mudang preforming the Chindo Island Ssitkim-kut, a shamanist ritual.

"'shamanizing" Buddhism first and Christianity later. Christianity was introduced to the country in the 19th century.

In modern times, scholars in Korea · have become aware of the existence of the masses and have embarked on a new wave of diverse and active research programs on the lives of common people. New fields of research, such as the study of the art of the masses, and of religion among the masses, have been opened; the most notable results of this kind of research are the dissertations by Dr. So Nam-dong and Dr. An Pyong-mu who have received their doctorates from universities in West Germany for their studies of religion among Korea's masses (minjung) .

"The Tale of Shimch'ong", like "The Tale of Ch'unhyang" and "The Tale of Hungbu", are typical examples of Korea's mass or popular literature. They have been passed down the ages by oral transmission. Their authors are unknown. 'The Tale of Shimch'ong" is also a libretto for p'ansori, a traditional Korean "mono-opera ."

These popular art forms were

usually transmitted by word of mouth because there were no written recordings of them. p•ansori was the sole exception. P'ansori dramas were recorded in writing and also published in book form so that the general population could enjoy them. These books were written in hangul which added to their popularity. In the latter part of the 18th century, the copying of these books became a specialized occupation . Private lending libraries sprang up. Commercial publishing of books became common.

Because p·ansori developed in the Cholla region, Cholla dialect was used in the narratives. Most of the famous p'ansori singers were from that region. As the genre became more popular around the country, however, these regional limitations gradually faded away. And p ·ansori became popular in all regions of Korea. This expansion was horizontal, from the countryside to the city.

Socially, p'ansori was transformed vertically, first as the entertainment of poor farmers and the low-born.

Then it was for the nouveau riche.

Eventually local landlords, officiais

and the members of the middle and upper classes were hooked. As a result, by the latter part of the 19th century, even the court aristocracy and members of the royal family were fans of p·ansori Thus, p·ansori, which started out as an art for the masses, transcended its regional and folk origins to become a national art form. This phenomenon constitutes a historic victory for popular or mass culture, as well as a complete reversal of the pattern of centralized authoritarianism which had ruled the Korean peninsula since the seventh century A.D. Under the centralized authoritarian system, from the center to the periphery, from the capital to the countryside. Thus the reversed path of diffusion taken by p ·ansori is worthy of our attention.

In fact, the pattern of p·ansori expansion is quite similar to the American phenomenon of Hollywood movies; that is to say, much of what we call American culture has flowed from the East to the West and from the middle and upper classes to the lower classes. Not so for motion pictures.

The home of p·ansori, the Cholla 17

The two lovers, Ch'unhyang and Lee Do-ryong, in "The Tale of Ch'unghyang." A story which ranks with the "The Tale of Shimch'ong" in popularity.

province, traditionally was an agricultural region and was alienated from and neglected by the central authority. It was a hotbed of opposition strength both politically and culturally. The city of Kwangju, known today as a mecca for Korean culture, is the capital of this region.

The concept of pok is the idealized form of happiness aspired to by all Koreans, past and present. The concept of pok is traditionally comprised of several factors: su (long life), pu (wealth), kui (high social status) and tanamja (many sons).

Together, they are "The Four Essentials." Conversely, Koreans have always been driven by a strong urge to avoid "The Four Unhappinesses": yo (untimely death), pin (poverty), 18

ch'on (low social status), and muhusa (the lack of a male heir).

If one studies the p'ansori version of "The Tale of Shimch'ong" in terms of this Korean concept of happiness, the heroine amounts to an epitome of the unhappy Korean masses. As soon as Shimch'ong's mother gives birth to her, she dies, thus failing to attain su or long life.

Shimch'ong herself throws herself into the sea at the tender age of 15 in order to help her father to regain his eyesight, therefore failing to attain long life and suffering the fate of a premature death. Shimch'ong's household struggles along by begging, reduced to poverty and low social status. On top of this, her father has no male heir. Thus Shimch'ong's

family is not even graced by one of "The Four Essentials." In the p'ansori, Shimch'ong's family makes one great leap from this overwhelming unhappiness to the attainment of all four elements of pok through the aweinspiring filial piety of Shimch'ong.

Thus the whole story comes to a happy ending.

Of course, in p'ansori the "process" of unspeakab le hardships and difficulties is more important than the "result" or the happy ending when the hero or heroine achieves great riches and happiness. The "result" is the dreams and aspirations of common people. Their reality is the "process" of coping with one form of hardship after another.

Thus the masses feel a sense of sympathy when they view this process through the p'ansori performance.

The story line and the songs of the p'ansori realistically portraying the arduous life of common people are extremely grim and at times very ¡ melancholy. One European critic told me: "There are two nationalities which have an innate talent for the violin. These two cultures have the greatest capacity for lamenting: the Jewish people and the Korean people." This idea seems to be right on the mark. Take for example the Korean violinist Chung Kyung-wha ¡and Pinchas Zuckerman born in Tel Aviv. The two world-class violinists were both born in 1948, both studied in New York City and shared the Leventritt Prize in 1967.

Songs in p'ansori are filled with heartbreaking melodies and are chanted in a grief-stricken voice that only the Koreans can generate.

Passion, explosiveness, rusticity and even brutality are all expressed through p'ansori. For some listeners, there is a strong affinity in p'ansori for the verism of the late 19thcentury Italian opera "Cicilia" which depicted the lives of poor farmers. One can see this similarity more directly, however, in the "Expressionist Cry;' a theme which ran through the early 20th-century German expressionist movement.

The singing voices in p'ansori sound at first quite rustic and coarse.

But in fact, they are the refined product of a long course of training.

In order to become a p'ansori singer, the student must practice what is

called tuk-um which means literally "to achieve the sound." The process of tuk-um requires both male and female pupils to practice to the point of literally vomiting blood.

One feature of p'ansori which sets it apart from Italian verism opera or German expressionist art is the coexistence within the art form of both tragic and comic elements. All p'ansori combine both la ughter and tears, the pathetic and the burlesque.

In addition, scholarly and elegant expressions were combined with vulgar and base profanities and d ialects. The use of scholarly or lea rned expressions was a way for the masses to ridicule the yangban elite through humor. In a p'ansori narrative, a person of high social position or advanced years is seldom dea lt w ith squarely but rather is always g iven the "from-down-below" treatment; that is, the higher the social status, the more likely is that person to be viewed in an unflattering light.

The final scene of 'The Tale of Shimch'ong" is helpful in understand ing the Korean masses' concept of happiness. In her single-minded determination to help her father to regain h is eyes ight, Sh imch'ong sells herself to the merchants and then commits suicide by jumping into the sea. The dragon ki ng saves her, however, and she enjoys a life of unbelievable opulence in the dragon palace. Ultimately she is allowed to return to the real world because of her extreme fi lial p iety. Here lies the most important point. Long life is the first of "The Four Essentials" sought by the Korean people. But this concept does not refer to "limitless" life or an "eternal world" in some place beyond this rea l world .

Rather, the Korean people have traditionally aspired simply for a relatively long life in the real world.

They seek a long life followed by death, not eternal life in the heavens above or somewhere below the sea in a dragon palace.

There are many Korean proverbs which reflect this concept of a happy long life on earth : e.g. "It may be like horse dung, b ut the real world is the best;" "The persimmon may be bitter even when everyth ing is upside down." These are all clear expressions of the thorough realism and secularism of the Korean people.

Toch'ang: In p'ansori and ch'angguk the master of ceremon~es gives a sung commentary on the story.

Koreans are basically optimists who affirm both life and reality. For this reason, they have a great attachment to life on this earth, despite the ups and downs, the tragedies and comedies, the sadness and happiness, the tears and the laughter. Consider the extremely great gap between high and low notes found in p'ansori. Th is is all part of the Korean people's tenacious will for life. Beca use of it, the Koreans have maintained their national and cultural identity and survived despite the 4 ,000-odd years they have spent in the gap between the powerful Chinese and the bellicose Japanese.

The p'ansori "The Tale of Shimch'ong" is stimul at ing the creative appetite of many of Korea's modern artists. In 1972, the Korean

composer 1sang Yun, who is a naturalized West German citizen, created "Sim T~ung; ' a modern opera based on the story of Shimch'ong. The work was perform ed dur ing the arts fest ival for the Munich Olymp ics by the Bavarian Nationa l Opera under the direction of Wolfgang Sawallisch and produced by Gunther Rennert. In 1988, Adrienne Dallas performed in "Shim Chong," a ballet based on Pak Yong-ku's scenario in Seo ul. In add ition, Ch'oi In-hun, a novelist and playwright representat ive of Ko rea's modern literature, created a dramatic parody of the legendary story called "Moon, Moon, Bright Moon." + Choi Chungho is a professor in the Newspaper and Broadcasting Department at Yonsl'i University in St'oul.

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SHIMCH'ONG

The Embodiment of Filial Piety

By Kim Hak-do

n the evening of December 4, 1987, a most unusual event took place at the National Theater in Seoul.

It marked the first time in the history of the Korean theater that a traditional folk opera was translated in its entirety into English for all the members of the foreign community and diplomatic corps in attendance to see.

The occasion, a special invitational performance of Korea's most well-known and loved folk opera "The Tale of Ch'unghyang ,"was sponsored by the International Cultural Society of Korea for Korean and foreign guests, and featured a libretto flashed on a screen - both in Korean and English, located to the right and left of the stage respectively - in full view of the audience (for a review of this performance, see Koreana, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1988, pp.

68-73).

The event, which proved to be a great success, is scheduled to be repeated once again from September 9-12, 1989 at the National Theater in a similar manner with a running English translation of the libretto.

This time, however, the folk opera to be presented will be that known as "The Story of Shimch' ong ."

Whereas Ch'unhyang deals largely with the theme of marital fidelity and feminine chastity in the face of extreme adversity, Shimch' ong is a story of filial piety, sacrifice, and devotion. Like Ch'unghyang, Shimch' ong, a classical novel of the Choson Period (1392-1910) whose date and author are unknown, and whose plot can be found widely distributed in Korean myth, legend, and folklore, occurring in Confucian, Buddhist, and shamanistic contexts,

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is also one of the original "Five Great P'ansori" upon which this traditional-style folk opera, known in Korea as ch'angguk (lit., "singing play;¡ or "singspiel") is based.

The p'ansori is a dramaticnarrative-epic form of folk music in which a solo singer is accompanied by a round drum known as the puk.

Though no one really knows precisely when or where this form came about, scholars estimate it to be somewhere during the early years of the Choson Period (C. 15th-16th century), and it is believed to have originated largely from shamanist ritual songs of the southwestern part of the Korean peninsula. In the ch'angguk, which developed much later at around the turn of the 20th century, the story is sung by different players who assume the various roles in costume and makeup, along with lighting, scenery, sound effects, and properties, and are accompanied by an orchestral ensemble of traditional folk musical instruments. In this respect, it may be compared with such theatrical forms as Chinese opera, Japanese kabuki, and, to some extent, Western opera.

Whereas some purists in Korea tend somewhat to deride the ch'angguk as a vulgarization of p'ansori, to the non-Korean speaking outsider, in particular, it provides the only medium whereby he can begin to grasp the basic storyline upon which the p'ansori - which, with its many dialectical and archaic expressions, along with Chinese classical literary, mythological, and philosopical allusions, is often too difficult even for most modern-day Koreans to understand - is centered.

As has been stated, "The Story of Shimch'ong" is one that deals

primarily with the theme of filial piety, one of the most highly regarded virtues of the Orient as is originally laid down in the "Five Cardinal Relationships" (i.e., subject to king, father to son, husband to wife, brother to brother, friend to friend) of Confucius as an ideal to be attained by society. It is a story filled with deep sadness and deep emotion, but has bits of uproarious humor scattered throughout to give it that dramatic balance, so to speak, that has been a part of the drama of every civilization from the ancient Greeks on up through Shakespeare and beyond.

As the story goes, a long time ago in Hwangju County, located in Hwanghae Province (in what is now North Korea), in the village of Tohwa-dong ("Peach Flower Village") during the Song Dynasty* (*Note: Though it is supposed that Shimch'ong is a Korean story, mention of the Song Dynasty throughout the text indicates the possibility of a Chinese cognate), there lived a poor blindman named Shim Hak-kyu and his wife, Lady Kwak. Though Shim was originally of noble birth, because of his blindness, they lived a life of dire poverty; but, nevertheless, they were happy. Although Shim and his wife were both in their forties, they were still childless. However, one night a fairy appears to Shim's wife in a strange but most beautiful dream, a dream which is interpreted as a dream of conception. Blindman Shim's happiness becomes even greater when a daughter is born to them. But his joy is short-lived; for, after giving birth, the Lady Kwak becomes seriously ill and passes away a week later, leaving poor Shim alone to care for the child, whom he

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Shimch'ong as ayoung girl is portrayed not only as a devoted daughter but as an intelligent and attractive personality.

names Shimch' ong. In order to sustain the life of his newborn, he has to beg milk for her.

As the years pass by, Shimch'ong grows up to be a bright, pretty, and highly devoted daughter, looking after her father with constant care and spending her time going from house to house begging rice for him.

One day, Lady Chang, wife of the late prime minister, hearing of Shimch'ong's filial deeds, sends her maid to Shimch'ong's house to fetch her.

Upon seeing Shimch'ong, Lady Chang is so impressed with her beauty, intelligence, and filial piety that she asks her to become her adopted daughter. Shimch'ong, however, remembering her blind father, politely refuses, and Lady

Chang understands.

In the meantime, Shimch'ong's father becomes so impatient after waiting a long time for his daughter's return that he decides to go out and look for her. Being familiar with the road, he thought he could easily find his way, but suddenly misses his footing and falls into a deep creek.

He begins to drown and cries out for help, but no one is around to hear his plea.

He is almost at the point of death when a Buddhist monk from Mong-un ("Dream Cloud") Temple appears on the scene carrying the Book of Virtue, a book in which the names of persons who will make an offering to the temple are written, and a long wooden staff. Hearing Shim's cries,

he rushes to the creek and pulls him out just in time to save his life. The monk then takes Shim home, where he tells him that if 300 sacks of rice were donated to the temple, his sight would be restored through the mercy and compassion of the almighty Buddha. Upon hearing this, Shim becomes excited and tells the monk to write a pledge of 300 sacks of rice in the Book of Virtue in his name.

After the monk leaves, Shim, coming once again to his senses, realizes the utter folly of what he has done, but it is too late to change. When his daughter returns home, he tearfully recounts what has happened, but Shimch' ong tells him not to worry and calmly reassures him that, in one way or another, the pledge will

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be fulfilled.

That evening, Shimch'ong prays to the God of the Sun and the Moon, the Stars in Heaven, the God of Earth, and to Buddha to help her find a way to obtain the offering so that her father's eyesight and happiness may be restored.

It so happened at the time that the Dragon King of the Sea was churning up the waters of the Yellow Sea in anger at a place called Imdangsu (the waters of the "death valley") because a young virgin had not been offered to him as a sacrifice, thus making the navigation of merchant vessels extraordinarily difficult and extremely hazardous. And so, it was reported that merchants and skippers were roaming the streets of Tohwa-dong in search of a virgin to be sacrificed to the Dragon King.

When Shimch'ong hears about this, she decides to sacrifice herself for her father so that he can see again, and makes secret arrangements to meet the merchants, whereupon she offers herself for 300 sacks of rice to be sent to the temple the next day.

She also makes them promise to keep the agreement a tight secret. The merchants agree and tell her the ship is to leave around the middle of the month.

After the agreement is concluded, Shimch'ong tells her father that she will become the adopted daughter of Lady Chang around the middle of the month, in return for which Lady Chang will make the offering of 300 sacks of rice to the temple. Shimch'ong's father is overjoyed upon hearing the news.

Soon, the day of departure approaches. In the wee hours of the morning a cock crows announcing the coming of the dawn. Shimch' ong awakes and sings these most poignantly moving words: "Oh rooster, please don't crow. If you crow, the day will dawn. If the day dawns, I must, alas, leave my poor father forever.... Ah, how I wish that I could put the night in a pot and fasten the sun below the sea. But how can such miracles be done by a mere mortal such as I?" Shimch' ong then goes to the kitchen to prepare the finest breakfast for her father when suddenly the sailors come and knock on the front gate. She goes out and motions for

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them to be quiet, telling them that her father still doesn't know about her departure and asking them to wait in the village. When her father awakens, he finds, to his great surprise, a most delicious breakfast waiting for him. Thinking this is the day of his daughter's departure to Lady Chang's house, his persistent questions to her go unanswered.

Finally, Shimch' ong can bear her grief no longer. Breaking into sobs, she confesses the truth about what she has done. At first, her father is shocked beyond belief. Then, as the sailors who are growing impatient begin to gather outside the front gate, his initial shock turns to rage and he dashes outside and attacks them with verbal abuse, calling to all the people of the village to come forward and observe his terrible plight, shouting that if his daughter is to die, he must die with her. But, it is too late; it is of no avail. The bargain has been made and cannot be broken. Shimch' ong is taken by the seamen and placed aboard the ship as the people of the village look on with shock and pity, and her father writhes in violent grief.

The ship sets sail and heads out to sea as the sailors intone a "rowing song," one of the many so-called "interpolated songs" found in p'ansori and ch'angguk that have no relationship to the storyline per se. After five days, the ship approaches the dreaded place called Imdang-su. The sea becomes heavy and the ship begins to toss about on the high waves. The wind begins to blow stronger and stronger as storm clouds hover overhead. Lightning flashes, thunder claps, and rain begins to fall. The sailors know then that the time to perform the sacrificial rite has come. With embroidered silk banners, fruits, and ceremonial wine set before them, they bid Shimch' ong, who is dressed in pure white, to advance to the prow of the ship as they pray to the gods to accept their sacrifice. Shimch'ong then prays for her father, and, after several hesitations, covers her head with her long skirt and flings herself into the raging sea. Soon after, the wind dies down, the waves recede, and the sea becomes calm once more. The sailors then know that their prayers have been answered.

After Shimch' ong descends into the sea, she suddenly encounters a group of court ladies who escort her to the magnificent Crystal Palace, home of the Dragon King of the Sea, who is somewhat equivalent to Neptune in Western mythology.

There, at first, she meets her longdeparted mother, now known as Lady Okjin. They warmly embrace each other, and Shimch' ong tells her of all the difficulties she and her father had to face in life. Shimch'ong is then escorted to the splendid court of the Dragon King where court dancers perform to elegant music and where many deities of the sea are gathered around. There, she is warmly received by the Dragon King who tells her that the King of Heaven was so deeply impressed with her act of filial piety that he has ordered her to be sent back to the world once more as a human being. After the king's proclamation, Shimch'ong is placed inside the petals of a huge lotus flower which is sent up to the surface of the sea at Imdangsu, the place where she had been sacrificed.

In the meanwhile, Lady Chang builds a pavilion to the memory of Shimch' ong on the white sandy seashore from where Shimch'ong had departed to console her poor and pitiful soul. After holding a ceremony there, Lady Chang names the pavilion Mang Sa Dae, a place which she visits in the spring and autumn to recall the memory of Shimch' ong to mind. The villagers of Tohwa-dong also build a monument to the memory of Shimch' ong near Mang sa Dae, a place where ShimCh' ong's father goes every day and severely grieves for his daughter.

It so happened at the time that the empress of the land had suddenly and unexpectedly died. The emperor, as a result, was in a deep state of shock. Day by day, his grief deepened. His subjects tried to console him, but it was in vain.

As the lotus is floating on the surface of the sea, a ship suddenly appears. The sailors, surprised by the strange sight of a huge lotus floating in the middle of the sea, believe it to be a flower sent from heaven and decide to deliver it to the emperor as a consolation for his grief. One night, after the flower has been

placed in the garden of the royal pavillion, the emperor goes out to see it. The petals open, revealing the lovely face and figure of Shimch'ong.

The emperor, so impressed with this lovely vision, and believing it to be a gift from heaven, decides to make Shimch' ong his empress.

Despite her newly-found happiness, Shimch' ong still cannot help but think about the fate of her poor father. Every day, she looks vacantly into the distance with her face bathed in tears.

As time passes, her longing deepens even more, causing the emperor to become quite concerned.

Shimch'ong then asks him to hold a huge banquet for all the blindmen throughout the land. That way, she thinks, her father will surely be found. The emperor agrees and Shimch'ong's heart is filled with joy.

In the meantime, not a day has gone by that Shimch'ong's father doesn't go to the monument near Mang Sa Dae to grieve for her. As a result, he has become old, thin, and haggard, with no one to care for him. Since no respectable woman wants to be the wife of a poor old blindman, alas, he finally takes up with a low class, cunning, and evil woman of ill-repute called Ppaengdok, who represents the sole comic element in the story. Though Ppaengdok appears to take a sincere interest in him at first, it is really only a deceptive pretense; the only thing that really interests the reprobate is seeing how much money or property she can squeeze out of the lonely old man. Shim's life with Ppaengdok proves to be nothing -¡-more than a lot of misery and hardship.

One day, it is announced publicly that the emperor is to hold a big feast for all the blindmen of the country for a period of three months and ten days in the nation's capital.

Upon hearing this, Shim and Ppaengdok decide to go to the capital city. However, along the way, Ppaengdok manages to steal Shim's money and belongings, and runs away with another blindman, leaving Shim to grope along the way by himself. On the way, he comes across a group of women pounding grain at a mill. As if to console his misery, he joins them in a joyous "grain pound-

ing song;' another so-called "interpolated song;' in return for which they give him a night's lodging and agree to guide him along the road to the capital.

Due to the many troubles encountered along the way, Shim's journey takes to overflowing with blindmen from all over the countryside, and is quite a comical scene indeed. Due to his delay, Shim's name is not recorded on the list of the blindmen read to the emperor. Upon hearing this, Shimch'ong is about to burst forth into tears when it is suddenly announced that a Mr. Shim Hak-kyu from the village of Tohwa-dong in Hwangju has belatedly entered the palace. When he is ordered to appear before the empress, Shim trembles with fear, not knowing why he has been singled out from the multitude of blindmen. He thinks that perhaps he is to be punished for selling his daughter to the sailors as a sacrifice.

He prostrates himself before the empress, tells her who he is, and begs to be forgiven for his crime. When Shimch'ong hears these words, she runs to him and shouts "Oh, Father!," and caresses his poor haggard face and skinny hands.

Upon hearing this, Shim becomes most confused and says, "My only child died three years ago. I have no child to call me father." Then Shimch'ong tells her father what had happened to her and how she became the empress. But Shim still cannot believe her, saying, "What? My daughter has been revived and is now empress? What do you mean?

Even though I am a blindman, do not mock me. let me die in haste."

Then Shimchong cries, "Oh Father, though you hear my voice, why don't you recognize me?"

It may be noted here that, from a philosophical-theological standpoint, the story represents somewhat of a veiled conflict between a Taoismshamanism admixture and Buddhism.

This is particularly apparent in the lines that follow, when Shimch'ong says: "I have been returned to life again by virtue of the King of Heaven, who was moved to tears by my sacrifice for you. But the Buddha has no virtue, as you are still not able to see anything. Therefore, please know it is me by my voice."

And then again in the following

lines: "As my filial piety was insufficient, I came back to life again; but, alas, I cannot make your eyes open.

So I will die once again and supplicate the King of Heaven to restore the vision."

However, the monk's pledge is finally redeemed and the sanctity of the Buddha's miraculous compassion restored in the following scene, as Shim replies: "If my daughter has truly returned to life once again, I have absolutely nothing to regret; nay, not even the loss of my eyesight.

Nay, nay, surely, do not die again.

Oh please, let me but once again look upon my daughter because of blindness. Oh, by the grace of God, let me look upon my beloved daughter?," whereupon he rubs his eyes for a while, and then, miraculously, they suddenly pop open. He blinks his eyes, opens them wide, looks around, and exclaims in a loud voice, "Oh! What is all this? Is it a dream or is it truly for real?" Then, shouting with joy, "By the saints! My eyes are open!

I can see! I can see!,"whereupon Shimch'ong and her father rush into each other's arms and weep for joy.

The deeply moving sight of the meeting between the long-lost father and daughter inspires all present in the palace to sing and dance for joy, including all the blindmen, whose sight has also suddenly and miraculously been restored.

The dance is then concluded with the following paean to filial piety: "Filial piety is indeed the root of all human behavior. Ah, how wondrous it is! Ah, how truly wondrous it doth be.I" And, from that time on, Shim Hak-kyu and his daughter, the Empress Shimch' ong, live together happily and forever after. + The w riter, whose American name is Allan Heyman , is a freelancer and long-term resident of Korea. His writings have done much to publicize Korean culture.

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' ' The

Tale ofis Shimch'ong" characteristic of Korea's ancient stories. Like "The Tale of Ch'unhyang" and "The Ta le of Hi:ingbu;' "The Tale of Shimch'ong" has transmitted the tradition of such ancient anecdotes right up to the present through its conversion into a broad range of forms including p'ansori, theater and opera. "The Tale of Shimch'ong" has also been the focus of a great deal of attention for a number of reasons, foremost of which are the wide range of motifs found in this work and the creation of a p'ansori versjon of the tale which has been transcribed over the years.

In add ition, unlike other ancient stories, "The Tale of Shimch'ong" is a rich treasury of a variety of elements relevant as conceptional references both historically and linguistically: a well-developed sense of theme; an abundant cast of distinct characters with conflicting persona lities; and a unique dual structure.

In this article, I will analyze the tragic and comic structures found within "The Tale of Shimch'ong;' looking at the personalities of its characters, the themes which they represent, and the dialectic integration of the two principal themes found in this work.

As I have mentioned briefly, there are several motifs inherited from an oral tradition which run throughout "The Tale of Sh imch'ong." The structure of the story can be called a generally oral one. The fundamental motifs were passed down the ages by a long parade of hwaja (speakers or story-tellers) or ch'angja (singers in the case of p'ansori), and were transcribed into written form in the latter years of the Chason Period (1392-1910).

E ighteenth-century Korea was a time of great cunfusion. The Chason Kingdom, a political structure based upon the principles of Confucian thought, was confronted with a major crisis caused by widespread resistance to the old order, overt discord among the different socia l classes, stubborn doubts about Confucianism itself which had served until then as the spiritual foundation of the Chason ~tate, and the infiltration of individ~alism in response to

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After he is rescued by the monk, Shim Bong-sa promises 300 bags of rice to the Buddha as an offering to regain his eyesight.

the rise of nationalism and collectivism.

The following is a brief summary of "The Tale of Shimch' ong."

1. Shim Hak-kyu comes from a very rich and respected family in Tohwa-dong, Hwangju. His family's fortune deteriorates, however, and at the age of 20, Shim loses his eyesight, and is forced to depend on his wife for a living.

2. Although they are poor, the couple lives happily, but they have no children. The two pray for a child.

3. Not long after, a girl named Shimch' ong is born.

4. A week after the birth of the baby, Shim's wife dies from complications following childbirth.

5. The blind man supports his daughter and himself by begging from door to door.

6. At the age of ll, Shimch'ong begins to take on odd jobs and begging to support her aging, blind father.

7. Word of Shimch'ong's filial piety and misfortune spreads far and wide, and a woman from a

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neighboring village offers to help the girl by adopting her as a foster child. But Shimch'ong declines the offer.

8. One day as the blind man is out to meet Shimch'ong on her way home from work, he falls into a river and is nearly drowned. A Buddhist monk who is passing at the time saves the old man and says that if the blind man gives 300 bags (sok) of rice as an offering to the Buddha, he could regain his eyesight. The blind man promises to give the offering.

9. When Shimch'ong hears about the old man's promise, she comforts him and prays for help.

10. Around this time, a group of merchants who travel by sea between Korea and China's Nanjing are searching for a virgin to offer as a sacrifice to the sea god.

11 . Shimch'ong sells herself to the merchants in exchange for the 300 bags of rice and then throws herself into the sea.

12. The four Sea Dragon Kings escort Shimch'ong to the Sea Palace on the orders of the

highest of the heavenly gods of Taoism. In the Sea Palace, Shimch'ong is reunited with her mother, who tells the girl of her future. At the same time, Shimch'ong's father meetยง a woman named Ppaengdok Omi. She tricks him into marrying her so she could steal all the money he has acquired. The blind man thus becomes a more realistic figure.

13. The revived Shimch'ong is taken to the emperor by the merchants from Nanjing on the orders of the highest god.

14. The god orders one of his disciples to inform the emperor that Shimch' ong, is to be made empress.

15. Shimch'ong now empress, tells the emperor that she plans to hold a festival for blind people.

16. At this festival, Shimch'ong's father regains his eyesight when he meets Shimch'ong.

17. All the blind people attending the festival regain their eyesight too, and Shimch' ong's native village prospers thereafter.

18. Everyone lives happily ever after.

As one sees from the foregoing synopsis, "The Tale of Shimch' ong" can be divided into two main sections marked by the climax when Shimch'ong dies. The tragic structure which I have mentioned consists of the portion of the story from Shimch'ong's birth until she dies by throwing herself into the sea. The comic structure of the story occurs within the framework of what Shimch'ong's father expe!iences after meeting Ppaengdok Omi, who represents evil itself. Another fundamental element of the latter portion of the story is the "happy ending," a classic format used to conclude traditional Korean stories, which I will exclude from my discussion of the comic structure here.

Let us turn first to the tragic structure of "The Tale of Shimch' ong."

The narrative style of this structure follows the format of the classic history of a hero or heroine, the heroine in this case being Shimch' ong and the main content being the process by which she becomes an ethical heroine. ¡ In this format, we follow the progression from the heroine's birth --->growth ---> confrontations with various ordeals--->the challenge and choice of death---> and finally the recovery of happiness. More simply stated, the heroine passes from happiness to unhappiness and finally to the recovery of happiness.

The tragic structure found in the first half of "The Tale of Shimch'ong" in particular corresponds to the happiness--->unhappiness (i.e.

Shimch'ong's death) model, and makes this tale particularly illustrative of the history of a heroine pattern.

Who is this heroine, Shimch'ong?

She is a heroine because of her unhappiness. This concept conforms with the hypothesis that all heroes or heroines are bound by fate to unhappiness as one of the essential conditions for heroism.

Shimch'ong's existence is indescribably dreary. In her life we can find many heroic elements: her curious birth; her impoverished surroundings; her irregular upbringing; alienation from the outside world; and her experience of loss.

The premature death of her mother, her ignorant and foolish father, and

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his miserable existence leaving his daughter little more than poverty and debt all caused by his own blunders, and Shimch'ong's own fastidiousness about life only contributes to the girl's misery. Indeed, one could analyze Shimch'ong's fastidiousness about life as a unique factor of her heroism, and it was this fastidious strength which played a decisive role in her ultimate choice of death over life. Her fastidiousness can be understood as dignity in the face of crisis as well as a sense of trust or confidence in herself, and ultimately it was the most important weapon she had in her struggle to overcome her many orde;:tls. To substitute a more theoretical expression, Shimch'ong's fastidiousness is a type of idealism

(in the sense of filial piety, the idealism of the Confucian ethic), and has much in common with the weapons of last resort of other heroic figures , e.g. steadfast patience in the face of hardship; a clear insight into life; exceptional wisdom and courage; and most importantly, an affirmative vision of life (affirmation being here the affirmation which emerges in the course of dialectic negation). The greater the trials, the more brilliant the future. Thus, Shimch'ong's choice of death is also a choice to embrace an affirmative vision of the future. No one could be sure if her father would regain his sight through her death. But her intractable resolve to kill herself also reflects the possibility that in her heart she

Shim Bong-sa and the blindmen on their way to the banquet at the emperor's palace.

appreciates that her choice of death is a kind of salvation and holds a certain legitimacy. (There is no reason why Shimch' ong has to die since the woman from the neighboring village has offered to adopt her.

If Shimch'ong had accepted this offer, the story would have lost all its traditional flavor, however. But, of course, Shimch' ong declines this offer.)

Shimch'ong's method of struggle through the choice of death and her pure, decisive and independent personality reflect the force of the tragic structure and the pure and cherished aesthetic of the tragic form .

Two types of salvation are suggested by Shimch' ong's death: the salvation of Shimch'ong's father and

Ppaeng dok omi guides the blind Shim using his stick.

that of Shimch'ong herself. Her father's eyesight is restored at the price of Shimch'ong's life. The significance of this motif is further expanded in the latter half of the story when the eyesight of all the blind people is restored. Thus the motif of personal awakening evolves to signify collective awakening or social enlightenment.

By contrast, Shimch'ong's salvation is a spiritual salvation, a Buddhist salvation where a new world of peace is attained through the renunciation of a miserable life.

A superficial theme which emerges from the tragic structure is the question of filial piety, the ethical standard of Confucianism and the idee fixe of the ruling elite during

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that era. Thus, in order to save her father's sight, Shimch'ong sells herself for 300 bags of rice and throws herself into the sea. Another theme runs parallel to this: the Taoist and Buddhist world view which is linked to her salvation. By forsaking her wretched life, Shimch'ong attains a new, truthful life in another world.

This concept is the hidden theme of this story. The purpose of these two themes is to intensify the issue of salvation. These themes reflect the logic of sacrifice and salvation.

The comic structure of "The Tale

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of Shimch' ong" centered around Shimch'ong's father is for the most part a type of social satire. What catches our attention is the father's dynamic ch~racter. In contrast to Ppaengdok Omi who as a symbol of evil is the complete opposite of Shimch'ong and a somewhat comical figure from the very beginning, the blind man Shim embodies elements of both evil and good, seizing the audience's curiosity with his transformation into a comic character at the hands of Ppaengdok Omi. Following the death of Shimch'ong, the

blind man's inherent commonness flows out freely:,thanks to the presence of Ppaengdok Omi, and his actions become more haphazard and puzzling. In fact, the scene in the first part of the story where Shim Hakkyu promises to donate 300 bags of rice to the passing Buddhist monk gives us a first insight into Shim's personality. But more than this, it is because of his comic and silly nature that his actions take on an illustrative role in the story. All of Shim Hak-kyu's actions possess elements of both a comic and tragic paradox,

g 8l

~

~

~

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On being reunited with his daughter, who is now empress, Shim regains his sight and the plot is finally resolved in a happy ending.

the result being an irony on a grand scale.

The pathos of comedy is much more effective than that of tragedy.

The scenes of sorrow and compassion involving Shimch'ong's father are much more persuasive and have greater appeal than those involving Shimch'ong herself. Just as Shimch'ong chooses idealism in the struggle between reality and idealism, it is clear that her father has chosen realism. And thus we can say that a thoroughgoing realism aimed at overcoming the difficulties we face

in everyday life is one of the themes of this story, expressing its underlying comic structure.

Having said this, we cannot conclude without addressing the final topic that emerges in a discussion of this tale: how are these two elements, idealism and realism, reconciled in this work? The answer is simple.

These elements are harmonized through the fierce struggle to discover the final whole, the result of the dialectic confrontation between a variety of dichotomies: reality and idealism; life and death; the

individual and the collective; the conflict between the old order and the new.

Ultimately, if the classic story of Shimch'ong helps us compare the questions of a bygone era with those facing us in modern society, our investigation has been justified. + Son Jin-chaek is a drama director.

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CHO.SANG¡HYON A Reigning Hero with Dramatic Voice

ho Sang-hyon is a singer with an innate voice and musical intuition, fortified with outstanding efforts and perseverance. With a brilliant voice commanding a stunning range of notes and dynamic gestures, he overwhelms his audience.

For almost four decades since his early teens, Cho's life has absolutely been devoted to mastering p'ansori, a unique Korean folk music characterized by the solo performance of a singer rendering the entireties of popular folk tales in songs, recitatives and gesticulations mimicking all characters. From a poor country boy to leader of a nationwide association for preserving this time-old folk music, his life has been a constant uphill battle, sometimes even fighting hunger. But his pleasantly handsome appearance seldom betrays dark vestiges from these difficult years.

Cho, a popular hero in many ch'angguk, the Korean-style operettas adapted from p'ansori music, is in his everyday life a man full of boyish energies and enthusiasm, often to the point of being frivolous. Aside from endless singing engagements, his daily schedules are heavily loaded with administrative work as president of the P'ansori Preservation Association and teaching and lecturing appointments. He does all his works with joy, that apparently comes from his deep love of music.

When Cho was cast for leading roles in the ch'angguk productions

C

one of the five traditional p'ansori numbers handed down until today, which is based on a popular Korean folk tale about a filial daughter who restored her father's eyesight at the cost of her life.

"I was 13 when I first went to his house to study under him;' Cho recalled. ''But even before that, I was a popular singer in my home village."

When 10 years old or so, he learned ~ some folk songs from an elderly man in his village and when he sang in c the field, his neighbors would praise ~ him saying that his song reduced ~ their pains of labor. @ At 21, Cho moved to Kwangju, where he stayed at the provincial Cho Sang-hyon. institute for traditional music. It was while he was staying at Mokp'o after on central stages in Seoul in the finishing three-years' military service early 1970s, not a few people tended that he met the late Mme. Park Nok¡ to simply consider him a lucky chu. He was living at a traditional fellow enjoying a sudden fame, music institute in the southern port without much expectations for his city, doing a regular program on a future. They recognized that he had local radio. Mrs. Park, who was an unusual voice, but still were visiting the city for a concert, strongly reluctant to acclaim him as a real urged that he come to Seoul to test star material, or a successor to the his talent in a broader world. handful of superstars who were In Seoul, he learned from Mrs. reigning over the conservative tradiPark her celebrated repertoire, tional music circles.

Nonetheless, such skepticism had Hungboga , another traditional stemmed from an ignorance of his p'ansori number based on a wellknown folk tale about two brothers background. Born in Chollanam-do, of contrasting personalities, the the mecca of p'ansori music, Cho honest and good-hearted Hungbo had studied for many years under Chong Ung-min, a local master and the greedy and malicious Nolbo. singer and teacher who trained He gradually gained reputation in many prominent musicians active in the Korean traditional music community in Seoul. His powerful voice Seoul, as a live-in apprentice in his and accomplished technique easily house. Chong inherited an ancient authentic style of Shimch'ongga, led him to a lasting stardom. +

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KIMSONG~E ACin erella from an Entertaining Family

im Song-ae was a popular child star in many Koreanstyle musicals based on the traditional vocal music, p'ansori, performed by allwomen casts in the early 1960s.

From age five, she appeared in a number of those musical productions, mostly adapted from ancient folk tales widely known among the public. For the cute, talented Songae, stage appearance was more or less a family business; both her parents were working in the same company, her father as a script writer and producer and her mother a popular heroine.

Little Song-ae used to feel completely at home on the stage. She would learn by heart most of the songs and lines for other characters and even shed tears singing a sad song. Applause from the audience was as much familiar to her as candies to other girls of her age.

"But I don't think my mother ever wanted me to become a folk singer like herself. She never taught me in earnest how to sing;' Kim says.

"Probably, she thought music little helped her lead a happy life as a woman, or she might even have believed she could have been happier if she had not learned singing." She grew up with music all around her, though, and learned most songs with her ears.

The women's musical companies faced a fast decline from the late '60s. Kim stayed away from both singing and acting through most of her teens. But the itching for

K

an entertaining career was always within her, and she formed a pop duet, "The Pigeon Sisters," with her elder sister, Song-nyo, in 1970. They seemed quite successful after releasing the second song, but were shortlived. Song-nyo decided to quit singing popular songs to go back to her original field of Korean traditional folk music.

Left alone as a solo singer, Kim remained in the entertainment world with no remarkable success until her marriage in 1982. Being a wife and mother never calmed down her passion for a performing career, which was given a timely outlet with the recent revival of women's traditional folk musicals.

Since 1985, she has appeared in four major productions. She is at present making regular appearances in a weekly program for Korean traditional music on KBS-TV. "It's just exciting to be able to sing again, not to mention studying Korean folk music seriously for the first time;' Kim said. ''And I feel a tremendous challenge about the role of Shimch'ong. It's a marvelous role expressing the goodness that is in all of us, but that few of us can actually put into practice."

Unlike most other p'ansori singers with deep, husky voices, Kim has a high-toned, clear voice with a rare lyrical quality. She says she was worried at first because her voice was different from others. "But I found that this different quality can work as a fresh attraction;' she said with a bright smile. +

Kim Song-ae has been cast for the role of Shimch'ong, a role she feels is particularly difficult as it involves expressing the goodness in our hearts that few manage to express.

37

HERITAGE

Creating the Sacred ··Sound ofDrum

By Kim Eung-suk

38

39

rom time immemorial, man began to make drums for various purposes. Some drums were used for trapping the wild animals in hunting or overwhelming enemies, some for dispelling evil spirits causing hunger and disease, and some for stimulating communion between man and the supernatural, or between the living and the dead. In many socie. ties, therefore, drums were credited with magical powers and often held sacred. Their production, more often than not, involved ritual.

In Korea, historic records say that drums and bells were hung onto the spirit poles erected in the specially designated sacred areas in Chinhan, a league of town states which flourished in the southeastern district of the peninsula some 2,000 years ago. In Puyo, a tribal state established by the ancestors of the present-day Koreans in northern Manchuria about the first century B.C., a shamanistic ceremony for invoking God was performed in

F

every lunar twelfth month. The ceremony was called yonggo, which literally means the welcoming of drum.

Buddhism also gave a special evilrepelling power to the drum. The traditional Sokka P'alsangdo, or the "Eight Pictures of the Buddha," includes a piece depicting the historic Buddha obtaining enlightenment under a bo tree as the King of the Four Heavens drives away the troops of the Satan King with the help of the Thunder Duke beating his eight drums with all of his four limbs. The Hwaom (Huayen) Sutra teaches that the evil spirits can be kept away by beating a drum. In Buddhist temples, the monks beat the four instruments, that are, the large bell, a wooden fish, a cloudshaped bronze plate and a drum, in order to salvage "all creatures in heaven, on earth, in water and in hell."

The ritual drums at Buddhist temples are called popko, or the "law drum;' from which the name of

The Bukch'um, or Drum Dance with the performers carrying their drums from the waist.

40

the small drums used in the folk farmers' band music and dance, pokku, is believed to have derived.

The hourglass drum, called changgo or changgu, frequently used in Korean traditional folk dance, is said to have originated from the ancient waisted drum from Central Asia. A picture on the ceiling of the historic Songgwangsa Temple, portraying a flying angel dressed in a shaman costume and holding an hourglass drum at the waist with her hand, offers an interesting clue to the ancient cultural stream from Central Asia to Korea and Japan because the waisted drums used in the Japanese Shinto shrines are held in a similar manner. The soribuk for accompanying the P'ansori (narrative folk song) is another popular type of drum used in Korean folk music.

Park Kyun-sok, who recently died at 70, was the first and the only drum maker ever to obtain the coveted title of "living cultural trea~ sure;' the highest honor for master artists and artisans in traditional

The making of asoribuk of barrel drum involves making a resonator with many rectangular plates of pine wood and then pulling the membrances tightly over the finished resonator using the hands and feet and fixing it with nails.

42

arts and crafts. Born in 1919 in Tamyang County, Chollanam-do Province, he began to make drums at age 12 as an apprentice for his uncle who had long been in the trade in Kwangju. At the beginning, it was solely to earn his bread after his father went bankrupt that the young boy moved into his uncle's house and did all kinds of odd jobs. By age 16, he learned all the necessary skills and came up to Seoul. He started to make drums on his own, but it was difficult even to make his livelihood from the small, irregular incomes from selling a few little drums from time to time to the brassware shops at Chong"no. Both the Second World War and the Korean War left bitter experiences for Park who was striving to stand on his own feet.

He married and settled at Yang" ch'on, a slum area in western Seoul, with slim hope to improve his financial conditions though his name became gradually known among the Korean traditional musical instrument dealers. In the early 1960s, his business met a fast upcurve after producing various drums used in the Choson period (1392-1910) royal court music at the request of the National Classical Music Institute.

Working with the Akhak Kwebom (Canon of Music), a 15th-century classic on Korean native music, as a text, he felt his knowledge and skills in drum making acquired in bits and pieces over a long period found a certain order. In 1979, he won the Presidential award in the governmentsponsored NationalExhibition of Tradi!t:ionalHandicrafts andwas.subsequently conferred the title of human cultural asset. Orders began to pour in and he virtually made most of the drums for use at important occasions, music colleges, concert halls and renowned Buddhist temples. His skills are now inherited by his two most outstanding students, Kim Chin-ch'ol, 41, and Lee Chong-gi, 33 .

The lp.te Park was highly considered for stubbornly adhering to traditional skills while most other drum makers these days tend to employ new methods for convenience and speed. He once said: "Right after arriving in Seoul, I had to work with low grade leather I bought from Japanese factories because I had only very little money in my

pocket. They had such a good machine that a piece of skin was neatly split into two. The outside one was better, so it was used in making membrances, while the inside sheet was boiled with glue. I had learned from my uncle back in Kwangju to be extremely careful in selecting and tanning raw skins, all useless knowledge during those difficult years."

Raw skins were removed of fat and tanned usually if\ spring in the past because those of the cows which ate fresh grass from the field were not thick enough to make drums. The skins were carefully examined at the slaughterhouse to avoid those with injection spots or sword cuts, and those that were salted because drums made of salted skins fail to make good sounds on humid days.

Imported cow skins are avoided, too, as they tend to expand.

The traditional skin processing method requires a tremendous amount of care and manual work, though it basically follows the same principle as the modern factory process. A raw skin from the slaughterhouse is steeped in limewater for one full week, turning upside down a few times each day, to get so tender that the fur can be scraped off by hand. It is then spread on the rounded side of a log cut into halves in a semi-cylindrical shape to completely remove fur with a dull-bladed knife with double hands. It is rinsed with clean water and spread again on the log to get rid of fat with a similar 'knife. Then the inside skin is planed off to obtain the appropriate thickness for membrance. For large drums, the wet skin should be some 4-Smm thick, which reduces to half when dried.

Next, the skin is dipped in chicken dung water for two days to be further smoothed. In the past, it was sometimes kept under rice husk for about a week and rinsed with water for the same effect. The wet skin is spread on a big, wooden plate, pulled with pincers and fixed with nails, to be dried in the shade for about three or four days. This time-old method of traditional drum makers may appear to follow basically the same principle as the modern factory process, but the mass production system at factories cannot satisfy the particu-

The drum is painstakingly painted with traditional designs and colors in the final stages of its construction.

lar requirements of drum makers as to the amount of fat or the thickness of skin, the major factors in determining the quality of sound.

The resonator for an hourglass drum is cut with a solid piece of pawlounia wood. A piece of round log is divided into three equal sections, the central section designed to be cut off from outside in the shape of a slim waist flanked by two round resonators to be hollowed from either side. The left resonator has to be a little longer in diameter than the right one so as to produce differ-

44

ent tones, and the two resonators are connected with a tube through the waist. Before drying in the shade, the resonator is either boiled in water or pasted with mulberry paper to prevent twisting. The left membrance is usually made of cow skin, and the right one of dog skin. Tuning is done with the cords linking the two membrances.

The soribuk, or the barrel drum, has a resonator made with many rectangular plates of pine wood, whose slant sides are pasted with rice glue, or a chemical adhesive these days.

The membrances are tightly pulled using the hands and teeth and fixed with nails, first in the four directions and then eight, 16 and more depending on the size of the drum, with less than one inch intervals. The skin is pulled further before finally fixing it with nails with decorative tops as the drum has no tuning device. + Kim Eung¡suk is a journalist w ith the ed itorial department of Art Space Publica tions in Seoul.

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MUSIC

THE KOREAN PEOPLE'S ATTITUDE TO MUSIC

By Wolfgang Brude

he richness of Korean music today springs from a social and cultural process, the origins of which lie shrouded deep in the shadows of ancient history. We are able to study these early roots of Korean music today by looking back at the research of Chinese historians who, begining around the third century, began their own investigations into Korean music.

The following is a quote from a chapter entitled "The Eastern Barbarians" from the Chinese history book, Wei-Chih (C.3rd century), which discusses the customs of the Korean people.

"After the planting is finished in May of the lunar calendar, the people always perform rituals to the spirits, forming groups in which they sing, dance and drink through the night without resting. The instrument they use to make their music is similar to the bell rung with a wooden hammer used in China for dancing. In October when the harvest is finished, the people repeat their ritual as a group. Every village performs a sacrifice to the gods under the supervision of a leader called a ch'ong-gun, who is chosen by the villagers themselves." This quotation is interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, it reveals the key elements of Korea's traditional popular music which has been preserved right up until the present: the significance of sacrificial rituals; melodies for each of the four seasons; and the attention paid to key phases of the agricultural cycle, such as planting and harvest.

These Chinese scholars' description of the Korean people is, of course, a reflection of their presumption of the

T

48

superiority of their own country's learning and culture. Buddhism, Taoism and other religious movements as well as the socio-religious movement of Confucianism came to Korea from China, and centuries later they reached the shores of the Japanese islands. One could say that China is the fountainhead of all types of court music which were gradually Koreanized in the form of aristocratic music, music for use in the royal court and for rO'yal banquets, scholarly music, music used in rituals honoring ancestors or Confucius and other genre from the Unified Shilla period (668-935) onward.

Nong-ak, or farmers' music, remains a popular musical form today. Farmers' music is usually performed by a band, or nongaktae, composed of four musicians: a gong player, an kkwaenggari or small gong player, a hourglass drum (changgo) player and a drum player. This fourpiece band is therefore called samul, or the four things.

In farmers' music, the kkwaenggari, or small gong, leads while the large gong plays the role of accompanist. The two drums give the music its zest, the genre full of passion and well-suited for dancing.

Because farmers' music has developed from its historic roots in percussion musical forms which have been passed down through the ages, the musicJlows freely with little sense of limits or restrictions.

In fact, its sense of fun, its intensity and effects make it comparable to percussion ensembles found in African music.

Some professional farmers' music bands began to make a name for themselves in the 17th century,

already breaking away from their focus on performances at sacrificial rituals, ceremonies and festivals related to agriculture, forming small groups and performing in villages here and there with little concern for renumeration.

There are many farmers' music bands active in Korea today, perfecting their art in performances around the country. There are two well- ¡ known groups of Samulnori performers, the second of which was formed in 1984 as the percussion team of the National Korean Music Institute.

We must not, however, limit our discussion of traditional music to nong-ak and court music, as there are a number of other important types of traditional music, most notable of which is shamanistic music used in ceremonies and rituals.

During the Three Kingdoms Period in Korea (57 B.C.- A.D.668) and the Han Dynasty in China, the influence of both female shamans (mudang) and male sorcerers or shamans (paksu) who were sometimes revered as spiritual leaders and often held a great deal of power in local communities was deeply significant.

The shamans' spiritual works, e.g. rain dances, ceremonies to ward off disease or war, and their ability to drive away evil spirits, etc., were, depending on the historical era, often recognized by the ruling authorities for use in religious ceremonies as were Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism.

Even today, shamans in both the countryside and cities engage in fortune telling and perform seances in which the shaman speaks in the voice of the deceased spirit. These

The kut, or Korean shamanist ritual, has had significant influence on Korean music and the performing arts in Korea.

spiritual activities are called kut and are usually divided into 12 sections, lasting up to a total of eight hours.

When a kut is performed many villagers participate. The music used on such occasions is called sinaui.

(Sinaui means "the music of the Cholla region" or "the music of the shaman" in the Cholla dialect.) The kut of the southern region are particularly rich and include both ch'ang (traditional dramatic songs) and instrumental music.

Sinaui is performed with a bamboo fife (p'iri}, a two-string fiddle (haekum}, a bowed seven-string instrument(ajaeng), a gong(ching), an hourglass drum (changgo) and a large drum (puk). One feels the musical spirit is really alive in these kut as the shaman performs her

50

songs in time with the accompaniment of the hourglass drum. Like farmer's music (nong-ak}, sinaui is now being performed simply for entertainment on stages throughout Korea, breaking away from its exclusive spiritual and shamanistic connections.

Perhaps the most significant event in the musical history of the Shilla Kingdom(57 B.C.-A.D. 935) was the introduction of T'ang Chinese music in the early 9th century. In the years that followed, traditional music in Korea could be broken down into two categories: Korea's ancient hyang-ak (native music) and t'ang-ak, music introduced from T'ang China.

Korea's indigenous music had been played on the kayagum (a 12stringed zither) , the komun-go

(a 6-stringed zither), large, medium and small bamboo flutes, and the pak, a wooden clapper which was shaped like a folding fan. Chinese instruments such as the mandolin, flutes and iron plates were added to the existing collection of instruments.

Some 200 years later the Chinese emperor Hui-Tsung, on two occasions,. sent Chinese musical instruments to the Korean royal court in Kaesong: 167 in lll 4 and 428 in 1116. From this point onward the music played at court ceremonies honoring Confucius (ta-sheng-yayue in Chinese) was Koreanized. The instruments which were sent to the Koryo court were destined for use by two separate ensemble groups: the tung'ga who performed on the terrace of monasteries, and the hong'ga which were performed in the courtyard in front of monasteries. The Chinese emissaries also brought the costumes for both the civilian and military participants in these ceremonial rituals as well as axes, spears, staffs decorated with pheasant feathers, accessories for dancers, and the diagrams for the seating of the various musicians.

With this gift from China, the essential elements of traditional Chinese court music, ya-yueh, were introduced to Korea . This music can be divided into three categories: chiyueh, a ritual which eulogizes the ancestors of the royal family; chiaoszu-yue, a ceremony calling forth spirits; ard yen-hsiang-yueh, music for use in court rjtuals and banquets.

It took some 300 years for this Chinese ritual music to be effectively "Koreanized;' a process finally realized durirg the reign of the Great King Sejong (r.l418-1450) who was extremely influential in the Choson period (1392-1910) and who had a deep understanding and interest in the arts.

This Koreanized court music (a-ak) was regarded by the aristocracy as an intermediary between ghosts and the soul and between the heavens and the earth. Music was, for them, a single universe or cosmos in which complete harmony between the yin and the yang could be ideally realized. In stark contrast to popular dance music which so vigorously expressed the aspirations of the com-

mon people, the audience experienced in the court music a solemnity and dramatic boldness despite the ancient depth and strength which was so gracefully expressed in the music. Like all court music, a-ak symbolized the dignity and authority of the king as did the architecture of the royal palace or the beauty of the garments worn in the royal court.

Every year in the spring and fall, ceremonies honoring Confucius are held at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul.

Outside the walls of the royal palace, music filled with passion dominated. Of this class of music, p'ansori, a kind of musical theater spread throughout Korea by popular musicians from the late 18th century onward, is the most notable. In the narrative songs of p'ansori, usually sung today by one female singer accompanied by one drummer, the emotions are allowed to flow freely.

In fact, no holds are barred as the audience literally joins in the performance with exclamations in praise of the performer such as kurohch'i (Alright!) and chalhaetgun(Well Done!).

Solo music (sanjo) on the kayagum is very closely related to the p'ansori format. The structure of the music is somewhat different in its classical format, but the two genres share the deep emotion expressed through the music.

The intrusion of the West in the 19th century and the subsequent

opening of the isolated East Asian nations such as China, Korea and Japan led to the introduction of European style music in the latter half of the 19th century. Because Japan adopted a great deal of Western artistic and musical trends in the course of its historic expansion, Japan's music today can be divided into two categories: traditional music, that is Japan's ancient music; and Western style music.

Because of the political persecution suffered by Korea under Japanese rule beginning in 1910, Korea's process of appeasement to Western tastes also began around this time.

In the 1920s and '30s, some students studied Western music at the few Korean universities which taught such subjects, but any real education in Western music had to take place at universities in Japan or the West. Orchestras at this time were modeled after European orchestras, ensembles developed, and gradually public performances were held on some university campuses.

Japanese colonialization, the process of liberation in 1945 and the Korean War all constituted serious handicaps for Western music in Korea. Today, there are several European style orchestras entertaining audiences in Seoul and several provincial cities, and Seoul in particular enjoys a very high level of artistic achievement. Not only is there a national orchestra as well as the KBS Symphony Orchestra, but performances by world-ranking musicians

and orchestras visiting Korea add to the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Seoul's musical community.

In the 1930s, several Korean composers had already begun their struggle with trends in modern Western music, and while many of their compatriots continued to adhere to classical romanticism, genuine investigations into a wide range of new types of Western music began to take hold in the 1950s.

Young Koreans today now study neo-classicalism and the legacy of Schonberg's 12-tone method in the U.S., France, Germany or Austria, several pursuing their art in Darmstadt, Koln and Paris. Many have learned the potential for the composition of serial music and computerized music.

Among these students, a number have returned to Korea as music professors in universities in Seoul and Taegu. Of particular note are the well-known artists Yi Song-jae, Kang Sok-hui, and Paek Pyong-dong who teach composition at Seoul National University.

Korea's most famous composer is Isang Yun who resides in Berlin for political reasons. His works reflect the most complete synthesis of the musical theories of East Asia and the West, a phenomenon which appears to be the direction in which Korea's modern composition appears to be moving.+ Wolfgang Brude is a German musician.

51

-

HERITAGE

KOREXS FDLK PAINTING

By Yim Doo-bin 52

ost of the Korean folk paintings we know today were created during the Choson period (1392-1910). But the origins of this genre must be traced deep into Korea's past. The walls of ancient tombs of the Three Kingdoms period (57 B.C.-A.D. 668) were decorated with elaborate paintings called Sashindo (Paintings of the Four Gods). It is in these paintings that we can find the roots of folk paintings that survive today. On the eastern wall of these tombs, one finds a painting of a blue dragon (ch'ongyong), on the southern wall, phoenix (chujak), on the western wall, a white tiger (paekho), and on the northern wall the hyonmu, a mythical combi-

M

Solhwado, a traditional painting signifying long life, happiness and good.marital relations. From a private collection.

nation of a snake and turtle. The sashin, or four gods, sometimes called saryong (the four spirits), or sasu (the four beasts), symbolize the four directions and are meant to maintain order in the universe. The concept of the four gods (sashinsang) grew out of traditional beliefs in astrology and in the distinct qualities of the four directions. Both concepts are based on the philosophy of the five primary elements (i.e. metal, wood, water, fire and earth).

The four animals found in the Sashindo thus were passed down through history, depicted in painting after painting until they ultimately found their way into folk paintings of the Choson period. The dragons, tigers, turtles, phoenixes and other

animals found in folk paintings are the product of this process of transmission from ancient times. Folk paintings based on other themes such as the shipchangsaeng or ten symbols of longevity, also are rooted in the wall paintings of early tombs.

These ancient wall paintings were not, however, folk paintings or a form of popular art. They were the creations by an elite group of specialized artists, masters in the iconographic significance and techniques of this art form. Despite the opinions of some of their more enthusiastic devotees, Korean folk paintings did not develop spontaneously. Rather they were the product of a gradual process of repeated imitation over a long period of time.

What exactly was the process by which Korean folk paintings developed? It appears that the themes found in the wall paintings of ancient tombs were adopted for use in paintings found in the homes of highborn families, perhaps in the form of pictures hung on the outer walls of a house, folding screens, or pictures hung on the walls or doors.

In early times, painters who created paintings based on the theme of the sashin or other subjects found in tomb wall paintings were usually members of a specialized painter class. They probably had a very clear grasp of the iconographic significance of the themes used in such paintings. Gradually, however, paintings used to decorate the homes of

53

the aristocratic yangban class found their way into the homes of common people. In the process of repeated imitation, the themes found in these paintings became the fixed themes of the folk paintings for common people. This transitional process, of course, was not an orderly one, it was rather an irregular and chaotic phenomenon. Therefore it is very difficult to accurately date these folk paintings. In fact, all we can really do is to make educated guesses on the basis of paper and pigments used. While this fundamentally is the result of the fact that Korean folk paintings lack a developmental stage in which their modes or patterns were standardized, it has also grown out of the custom of anonymity in folk painting.

Why did folk paintings lack a clear stage in their development when the standards of the genre were fixed? Most folk paintings were created by itinerant painters of the commoner class who had either failed in their examinations at painting school or who merely were amateur commoners with some gift for painting. These amateurs painted in order to support themselves or to create decorative paintings for use in their own homes. Their works were not created as a personal statement of their feelings; in fact, these painters did not feel the need for such expression, because their folk paintings were practical paintings that followed a set form passed down through the ages. Having said this, however, I do not mean that there were no changes in the forms or styles found in folk paintings. There are indications that folk paintings underwent a great deal of change.

This change simply did not follow any consistent developmental pattern.

It was so disorderly and jumbled that we can not be sure of the historical relationship between different paintings. The primary reason for this was that the amateur painters lacked any sense of occupational pride. Perhaps more importantly, these painters spontaneously borrowed various patterns from orthodox paintings of the upper classes purely on the basis of their own likes, dislikes and needs.

What specifically do we mean by the term "popularization?" Themes

54

found in orthodox paintings were generally the expression of the artist's personal subjective belief, emotions and intuition, while those found in folk paintings were the results of a generalization of those orthodox themes.

The following examples may help one to understand why the themes or subjects found in folk paintings were not the expression of the individual artist's subjective philosophy or emotions.

One frequent subject of folk paintings is the flower-and-bird motif which originated in orthodox paintings of flowers and birds. In their orthodox form, these paintings were created as an expression of the artist's personal appreciation of the beauty of nature, a realistic expression in the sense that what was rear was the formal beauty made perfect by the artist's idealized conception.

The paintings were to be appreciated, an effort to experience the beauty in the process of contemplating nature.

A master of the flower and birds genre, Hui Chong, once advocated loyalty to a specific reality in the following way: "Artists must be faithful in their representation of the forms and colors of objects as they really exist." The author of the Sonhwa-hwabo theorized that creation's various manifestations and natural plants suggested human thoughts and emotions, and thus paintings of nature were not merely external representations of those natural objects or creations but were the means of transmitting the essential spirit of the object as well, therefore captivating the viewer as if he or she were looking at the object itself.

The basic value system embodied in folk paintings reflects the collective aspirations of common people: secular values such as long life, ¡ wealth, nobility, health, many sons, and sexual love. The folk paintings which convey the collective aspirations can be roughly arranged in the following 15 categories.

insects and plants, bees, butterflies and flowers symbolize the harmony of the yin and yang.

These paintings are usually filled with peonies, pomegranates, lotus blossoms, pheasants, phoenixes, plum blossoms, chrysanthemums, magnolias, orchids, cranes, wild geese, narcissi, ducks, chickens, white herons, mandarin ducks, swallows, orioles, sparrows, bees, butterflies, grasshoppers, etc. The beautiful peony symbolizes wealth and happiness, while the hundreds of seeds found inside a ripe pomegranate are a metaphor for the desire for many children. Pheasants, mandarin ducks, ducks and other fowl express the aspiration for eternal love between man and woman. Plum blossoms, chrysanthemums, orchids and other flowers originated in the tradition of the Four Gentlemen of the calligraphic school of painting (plum, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo), while the chicken is a derivative of the chujak or phoenix portrayed in the sashindo.

It is generally believed that paintings portraying bees, butterflies, grass, flowers and the like originated from the paintings of Shin Sa-imdang (a female artist of the Choson period 1504-1551). The image of the lotus blossom emanated from ancient Buddhist tales: the beautiful flower blooming in a muddy pond a symbol of Buddhist wisdom in an ignorant world. But in folk paintings, this abstract concept disappears. The image of the lotus blossom joins that of the mandarin duck and other objects to represent the euphoric harmony between the yin and the

1. Flowers, birds, plants and insects

These paintings portray magpies and tigers on a background of pine trees. Magpies are usually sitting on tree branches at the uppermost edge of the painting, while a large tiger is

This is the most common form of folk painting. In paintings of birds and flowers, birds in pairs symbolize marital love, while in paintings of

yang.

It is not uncommon to find depictions of rocks which suggest male or female genitals in paintings of flowers, birds, insects and plants.

This, of course, is another metaphor for the harmony of the yin and the yang. For this reason, these images are often found on folding screens in the bedrooms of newlyweds or in the master bedroom.

2. Paintings of magpies and tigers

placed in the center of the picture.

Both these animal images originated in the sashindo, and the coupling of the two animals probably stems from the inclusion of the paekho (white tiger) and the chujak (phoenix) in the early paintings.

The Korean people have never viewed the tiger as simply a frightening or ferocious animal. Rather, the animal has always been seen as a force for justice which condemns injustices and evil. Thus, the tiger has come to be known as a guardian god who drives away evil spirits.

Paintings of magpies and tigers also are known for their exorcist significance as Well. The tiger, however, is usually grinning and does not look ferocious. This image of a laughing tiger is unique to Korea and reflects the Korean people's deep affinity for nature. A tiger is seen not as a hostile figure but as a close friend who shares nature with us.

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3. Landscape paintings The origins of the landscape painting can be found in orthodox paintings, but more specifically it appears that the source of the art form was Chin-gyongsansu, initiated by Chong Son (Pseudonym: Kyom Chae, 1676-1759). Chong Son was the first Korean painter to completely reject the Chinese style of landscape painting and create a uniquely Korean landscape painting style. His style uses simple lines. Gradually it was imitated by folk artists, and ultimately it became the model for folk landscape painting.

4. Hunting scenes These paintings find their roots in hunting scenes drawn on the walls of ancient tombs. In the hunting scenes portrayed in folk paintings available to us today, hunters are dressed in Chinese costumes. This is probably a consequence of the Mongolian invasions during the Koryo period (918 -1392). Thus we must assume that the direct source of these hunting scenes portraying hunters dressed in Chinese garments is the Koryo dynasty. Hunting scenes not only glorify the practice of hunting, but also are very satirical. That is, the hunting paintings were a way of inferring criticism of the Mongol

Maenghodo, or wild tiger. The Choson Period picture is preserved in the Korean National Museum collection.

55

Solhwado

Solhwado

invaders who were trampling over Korea at that time. In some folk paintings, one can find examples of tigers knocking away the spears of savage barbarians. These paintings speak clearly of the Korean people's undaunted resistance to foreign invasion.

depended on farming for survival.

These rural scenes were originally painted in the early Choson period by professional painters, but gradually became part of the folk painting repertory.

Biographical paintings or p'yongsaengdo depict the lives of figures admired by the common people.

Generally portrayed on eightpanelled screens, the paintings covered the entire life story of a selected individual, from his first birthday celebration, his years of study, winning high honors in the state civil examinations, his installment as a high government official, through to his 60th birthday celebration. Biographical paintings of the orthodox genre portrayed the life of a particular historical figure. But in folk paintings, the form was generalized to reflect common people's desire for a life of splendor. Thus the subject of such biographical paintings was not necessarily a specific figure but was simply a person who symbolized a lifestyle envied by the masses.

Kyehoedo, or paintings of groups of people, depicted gatherings of friends or groups enjoying picnics or

5. Paintings of fish This category of paintings portrays various kinds of fish, clams, crabs, shrimp, etc. in the ocean and rivers.

If one looks back into the distant past, one can find the origins of this genre in paintings on angular rocks (amgakhwa) from the neolithic period. Carp (especially carp jumping out of the water), one of the most common images found in paintings of fish, symbolize success in one's life, while the depiction of many small fish symbolizes the desire for many children. Paintings of fish also reflect a desire for sexual love, however, and so the fish can be perceived as a symbol of the male genitalia, while the water or a submerged rock with a hole in it represent the female genitals. For this reason, paintings of fish were generally found in the bedrooms of

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Ohaedo, or fish paintings

young couples, or were used on special occasions.

6. Genre paintings Genre paintings portray the customs of Korean people. Perhaps most representative of this category are paintings of farming scenes (kyongjakdo ), biographical paintings (p'yongsaengdo ), and paintings of rituals and ceremonies (panch'ado) .

Kyongjakdo portray rural scenery, plowing, and other agricultural tasks, and were cherished by the Korean people. Korea for long was an agricultural society which

boat trips together. Panch'ado were paintings of rituals and ceremonies held at the royal court. These paintings are usually laid out on a symmetrical format.

7. Slnsiindo - paintings of Taoist hermits with supernatural powers The philosophy of sinson or asceticism originated from the thought of the great Chinese philosophers laotse and Chuang-tse. Sinsondo were paintings reflecting the aspiration to live without greed.

8. Paintings depleting famous tales Solhwado are paintings depicting famous tales or novels. Perhaps most representative of these are folk paintings of stories from the Samgukji (History of China's Three Kingdoms), Ku-unmong, a 17th-century novel, The Tale of Shimch'ong, and The Tale of Ch'unhyang.

9.Munjahwa Munjahwa were paintings in which pictures originating in traditional folklore were painted in and around the strokes of Chinese characters which had some particular significance in terms of the Confucian value system. Commonly used characters included hyo (filial piety), che (civility), ch'ung (loyalty), sin (trust or faith), ye (etiquette), (manners), yom (integrity), and ch'i (shame).

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10. Paintings of books Folk paintings of books reflect the Korean people's traditional reverence for the pursuit of knowledge. Generally, the entire canvas is covered with books, household items, flowers, eyeglasses, etc. giving the painting a unique decorative feeling and emitting a fresh aesthetic sense which is almost modem in its conceptual use of time and space. These paintings were usually hung as decorations in the rooms of children.

11. Paintings of animals Dragons, tigers, turtles, phoenixes, chickens, hawks, sapulsang (a deerlike animal), pulgasari (a mythical creature which is said to eat metal and drive away nightmares, etc.), rabbits, and deer were among the subjects of these folk paintings.

Dragons, tigers and hawks are the most common. Pictures of hawks

Suryopdo, or hunting scenes, have their roots in the murals found on the walls in ancient tombs. These pictures were both satirical and singing the praises of hunting. The fact that the hunters wear Chinese costume indicate their origins in the Koryo period (918-1392) when Korea was overun by the Mongols.

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originated from orthodox paintings.

In the course of transfiguration from the orthodox art form to folk paintings, however, a deep sense of homeopathic magic seeped into these images which were then used as charms to ward off disasters such as floods, fire and famine.

12. Shipchangsaeng A number of or all of the shipchangsaeng, or ten symbols of longevity, are the subjects of many paintings. The ten symbols were: cranes, deer, turtles, pine trees, herbs that brought eternal life, mountains, the sun, clouds, water and rocks.

13. Shamanistic paintings Among the shamanistic paintings are the Sanshindo which depicts an elderly white-haired man leading a tiger and the Ch'ilsongdo which portrays the seven gods controlling the fate of man in their hands (the gods in this case referring to the seven stars of the Big Dipper). Pyolsongmamado depict the image of a woman who spreads smallpox. In addition to these there is a variety of different paintings on marital love.

14. Map paintings There are many examples of map paintings in which a map of Korea is decorated w~th a realistic depiction of the country's actual topography.

In many cases, buildings and mountains are portrayed quite accurately.

15. Paekjado Paekjado were paintings which depict children at play. The preference for male children was particularly evident in these paintings. + Yim Doo-bin is an art critic and professor at Dankook University.

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59

KIMSUK-CHA MYSTIC AND POWERFUL SHAMAN DANCE

By Lee Kyong-hee

he dance of Mme. Kim Suk-cha, with its roots in the time-old shamanistic traditions of her native region of Ansong, Kyonggi-do Province, is filled with a mysterious dynamism defying the widespread view that Korean traditional dance is characterized by feminine elegance and pathetic feelings. Mme. Kim, a diminutive lady in her early sixties and with a sensitive face shows vivid vestiges of her long, painful pursuit of artistic accomplishment and displays a magnetic power on the stage with her highly symbolic movement, which suggests the primitive origin of her dance as a means of spiritual communication with the supernatural.

Her solo Tosalp'uri (Exorcist Dance) represents an epitome of Korea's traditional folk dance style with its solid foundation in ancient shamanistic rituals. Dressed in a snow-white ensemble of ch'ima (skirt) and chogori (blouse) and with her ebony black hair tightly pulled back to form a tiny chignon at the nape, she appears on the stage holding in her hand a white silk scarf which is about twice the length of her height. As she begins to move very slowly, stretching up her arms and throwing the scarf to draw a big, twirling circle in the air, the audience withhold their breath amid anticipation for a mystic communion. Her dance unfolds in an energetic, but dignified manner a solemn challenge to the more popular, secularized type of Salp'uri exorcist dance usually performed by young women, with a pessimistic, sensual undertone.

The roots of Kim's dance, which began to draw wide accla im from

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60

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_ ______.....;.______....__@ Kim Suk-cha.

the late 1970s, may be traced to her parents, or even further to her remote ancestors. Her father, Kim Tok-sun, was a renowned singer and dancer based at Ansong, central Korea, and her mother, Chong Kuisong, a hereditary shaman with no less notable family background 111 folk performing arts. Suk-cha was born in 1927 as the fifth of their seven children, and displayed outstanding talents at an early age. She started to learn the basics of shaman dance from her father at five and after barely passing age ten, began to join her parents in performing various rites. Her father, firmly determined to train his daughter to become a reputable artist, arranged for her to study under his friend, Cho Chin-yong, who was a famous dance teacher at the time. She learned from Cho a number of dances from his acclaimed repertoire, including Sungmu (Monk's Dance}, T'aep'yongmu (Peace Dance) and Ipch'um or Salp'uri (Exorcist Dance). But her apprenticeship under Cho lasted no longer than

six months because he gave up teaching her, saying that he had no more to teach her as she learned extraordinarily fast. At age 12, she made an official debut at the newly opened Ansong Theater with Sungmu and Salp'uri and won a good reputation around Kyonggi-do Province.

Her childhood, however, was dotted with more painful incidents than happy ones. Most of her classmate~ at Pogae Primary School, which was the only school she ever attended, stayed away from her as she came from the background of a shaman's family in the lowest social class in old-time Korea. Her family life was not exactly happy, either, because her father was extremely stern in disciplining her. He frequently beat her up. "Sometimes, I hated him so much that I even wished he would die;' she says with a bitter smile.

Even more mortifying ordeals began for her when Japanese authc.rities prohibited all traditional Korean communal rites and festivals, a new phase of their colonial policy that proved downright cruel with the outbreak of the Second World War. Her family became a target of close watch by those Japanese who tried to put an end to all customs encouraging national identity and solidarity among their colonial subjects. Especially her father was in trouble on the grounds that he had "agitated his neighbors by teaching them Korean music and dance." In spite of the ever increasing threats from the Japanese, he continued to teach his daughter the intricacies of dance. Most of the time, the lessons were given at night and in secret at the back of their house. They were caught off guard not a few times, though. Suk-cha had to submit writ-

ten apologies seven times and was once detained at a police station for a week. The Ja pane~ confined her father longer and cut off his topknot, a symbol of his national consciousness. He finally dicided to hide out with his daughter in a cave not far from a small Buddhist temple in the mountain. Thus was it possible for him to continue his lessons for her.

"My father seemed to 1believe that he must hand over to me all he knew about Korean dance and music," Kim said. "And he tried to implant in me his belief that an artist should never seek materialistic wealth. But the hunger we experienced back those days was simply beyond endurance." After a short while, they ran short of the small amount of grain they carried from home and in the end they tried in vain to fill their empty stomachs with wild fruits and grass roots. "No, I can never explain with words the tortuous state of hunger we went through," she said.

"My whole body got swollen from malnutrition. We could never take a bath nor brush our teeth. All we could do was wash our face in the stream and clean our teeth with the tiny sand on the stream bed."

The national liberation in 1945 brought about an end to their recluse life in "subhuman conditions." Her father managed to raise a fund equivalent to the price of 50 bags of rice. They came up to Seoul with the money and opened the "Kim Suk-cha Traditional Dance Institute" in the heart of the city.

This was a pioneering private institution for Korean folk dance in the postwar years. She seldom thrived financially, nor succeeded in gaining any kind of reputation as a dancer despite her prominent artistic standards. She moved her institute, which was usually her home, from one place to another under constant financial pressure and took up temporary teaching jobs in provincial cities like Taejon, Ch'ongju and Kunsan.

The year 1976 marked a major turning point in the career of Mme. Kim. She was about to turn into her fifties and was still in search of a "breakthrough." She visited two leading dance theorists, Profs. Chong Pyong-ho and Shim U-song, to help her to give a performance in Seoul.

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In traditional shaman's costume, Mrs. Kim performs the PuchOng-kut, a shamanist ritual (above and right).

She needed an opportunity to get her dance properly assessed by largely indifferent dance circles and critics in the capital city. Both professors were greatly impressed in watching her demonstrate her unique dance styles and agreed immediately to help her to organize a performance.

In December 1976, she gave her first dance recital at the Munye Theater in the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation. The recital was a remarkable success. The occasion brought into the limelight the glories of Korea's traditional shamanistic arts and produced a stunning impact on the dance community. Her institute was shortly changed into a popular arena for most leading Korean traditional dancers to receive re-education or acquire artistic inspiration.

In spite of her failing health and a traffic accident in 1984, which caused a serious injury on her right knee, Kim still is very busy with performing and teaching engagements. Her latest major stage appearance was in 1986 in commemoration of her 60th birthday.

What annoys her most these days is

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@

Kim's daughter and most trustworthy disciple performs the Sungmu, or Monk's dance.

not hunger or public indifference but an unceasing controversy over the authenticity of her dance and her shaman background. To counter it all, she founded the Korean Shaman Arts Preservation Society in 1979 and has since sponsored a series of presentations by the artists of shaman origin from various

provinces across the country. Some of the shaman folk arts introduced through her efforts have been designated "Important Intangible Cultural Properties" by the government for special protection and transmission to future generations. But the government is still withholding that designation for the Kyonggi-do provincial rites that only Kim and a handful of elderly musicians can perform.

"I really do not care about the government designation as long as my students are given due support for their activities," Kim said during a recent interview. "But I want them to stop quibbling about the authenticity of my dance. I cannot clarify the origin of my dance academically, but believe me, I dance as I was taught by my father and have been teaching my daughter exactly the same way because I cannot allow myself to adulterate tradition." She lives with her only daugher and teaching assistant, Kim Un-son, 33. + Lee Kyong-hee, a freelancer, is former vice-chief of the Culture Department at the Korea Herald.

PEOPLE

KWON OK-YON'S ART OF ACHROMATIC COLORS

By Kim Young-uk

eavy achromatic colors dominate the canvases of Kwon Ok-yon. His paintings, often expressive of mythical episodes, remind the viewer of the weathered murals in ancient tombs, with earthy brownish tints implying the depth of influence from time and elements. A grim silence prevails many of his works, a silence apparently coming from peace in his mind which has been achieved after stormy anguish over many desires.

Kwon, who belonged to the last generation of Korean artists who went to Tokyo to study Western painting, says he learned very little in Japan, and his statement is understandable when considering that Japan was engaged in the severe battles of World War II during the first half of the 1940s which he spent in Tokyo attending the Tokyo Imperial Art School. Most daily necessities were in short rations and survival itself was a desperate question for most citizens, art and culture being too luxurious things to talk about. "With neither terebene oil nor a brush;' he recalls it was sheerly impossible to paint under the gloomy wartime circumstances. He says he feels it was only after graduation that he started to learn painting in earnest.

It is interesting to note, however, that his paintings, largely in abstract expressionist style, almost invariably bear a certain mysterious tonal quality. That quality, reminiscent of the popular, yellowish brown backgrounds in traditional Oriental painting, is also noticed ¡i n the paintings by Park Rae-hyun and Ch'on Kyong-ja, the two most outstanding women painters of his generation.

Both were born in the 1920s and

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Portrait of a Girl by Kwon Ok-yon, oil on canvas.

educated in the wartime Japan in the '40s. It is hard to dismiss this somber undertone simply as an expression of their personal agonies. It rather seems to indicate a psychological residue common to all Koreans of their generation, who grew up with deep scars of a nation under foreign oppression and further experienced ¡a horrible war.

Kwon, whose high cheekbones and robust build suggest the bearings of ancient horseriders who ruled Manchuria and the northern peninsula, was born in 1923 in Hamhung, Hamgyongnam-do Province, now in North Korea. The only son for five consecutive generations of an aristocratic family respecting Confucian scholarship, Kwon from his early childhood studied Chinese classics and calligraphy, the basic subjects for all high-born boys in old-time Korea. But the young Kwon was blessed with a rare environment caring for Western arts under the influence of his father, who was an amateur violinist. While a student at Kyongbok High School in Seoul, he

won a commendation award m a nationwide students art contest and was advised by his Japanese art teacher to pursue painting for his future profession.

Painting was one of the last professions that children of the upper-class Korean families at that time could ever aspire for. When he suggested he wished to enroll in an art school, his family was enraged at the "ominous and disgraceful" thought.

His grandfather even left home to wander around Manchuria for nearly six months to calm down his exasperation. "From a sense of guilt" for going against the expectations of his family, Kwon notes that he has made it a rule for himself never to carry a sketchbook or wear a beret outside home.

In the early 1950s upon returning home, he was largely inclined towards Korean naturalism, producing realistic and decorative pictures showing an impact from the Nabis.

He married lee Pyong-bok in Pusan during the Korean War, and they went to Paris in 1957 to study art.

He found the postwar Paris a fascinating place full of energies for experiments to achieve new concepts and innovations in all areas of artistic and intellectual endeavors, overcoming the old orders and traditions. Various new attempts were being made in art circles, in particular, including the movements for Art Nouveau and Abstract Expressionism.

Kwon regards his three-year-long stay in Paris until 1960 as a blessing.

"But it was as much a challenge as a blessing;' he added seriously. "You can imagine that I could hardly compete with the Europeans with my short skills in oil painting.

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Flowers Reaching for the Moon, 1986, oil on canvas.

Besides, I had the appalling realization that I was too ignorant of my own background and traditions.

European artists, as a breakthrough for themselves, expected me to offer something fresh from the mysterious Orient. But I knew absolutely nothing. I guess I was not the only Korean to face this embarrassing situation."

In search of ima!!es unique to his homeland, Kwon experimented with Korean alphabets for almost half a year, but to no satisfactory result.

The hieroglyphic characters on ancient Chinese oracle bones gave him an inspiration and after studying the bones at the national library in Paris over many months, Kwon succeeded in creating pictures based on them. His paintings at this eyeopening transition, mostly borrowing motifs from ancient Chinese oracle bones and employing the abstract expressionist technique, gave a fresh impression to the Paris art world which was constantly pursuing new styles and trends. Salon

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d'Automne accepted his works twice, earning him a reputation by the time he returned home in 1960. Between 1961 and 1963, he went back to Paris a few times to hold joint exhibitions with a group of young Korean artists such as Park Seo-bo, Kim Chong-hak and Chong Sang-hwa.

Homecoming led to another turning point in his creative endeavor, which was spurred by his discovery of the beauty of the Shilla period (57 B.C.-A.D. 935) earthenware. He seemed to find the native breath of his beloved motherland in the simple and crude vessels made by the name less, ancient potters. Particularly, his homesickness for his native town in Hamgyongnam-do province, where he could no longer return due to the division of Korea, appeared to find an artistic outlet by indulging in collecting and appreciating the ancient ceramics.

He was engaged in presenting the "image of earth" inspired by the Shilla vessels until the early 1970s, when he was to meet still another

momentum for change.

In 1973, Kwon was invited by the U.S. State Department to stay in the States for one year. "At that time, I had a chance to visit the Buffalo Museum of Art, where I was struck by the pai~tings by Paul Gauguin;' he said. He was as much moved by the genius of Gauguin as he recognized the "shamefully limited" ability of his own. After this "unforgettable" incident, young girls and naked women began to appear on his canvases so frequently as to arouse criticism that he was compromising his art to cater to the taste of collectors.

Some even conjectured that he would soon give up his momentary indulgence with depicting pretty women. "But they were all wrong;' Kwon said with a smile. "I found figure painting to be much more difficult as every person has a different mood and colors. I needed to know how to present the various moods and colors if I were to consider myself a true painter." He produced more than 200 figure

paintings over the next lO years, many of them of young girls. His daughter was his favorite model.

Kwon, now in his late sixties, is expanding the scope of his concern beyond painting to that of "an arti-¡ san;' broadly embracing various areas of fine arts such as sculpture, architecture, and stage and film sets.

Like Michaelangelo, Schwitters or Duchamp, he hopes to unfold multidimensional activities coordinating music, drama and fine arts. Drama is an especially familiar area for him as his wife, who studied drama, phonetics and design in Paris, has been leading a theatrical company for more than two decades.

Since a few years ago, he has been occupied with erecting a private, multipurpose establishment combining a museum, theater and concert hall on a 10,000-p'yong (33,000 square meters) estate near the Chason period royal gravesite at Kumgok, east of Seoul. The main structure is a Chason period mansion where Princess Hwagil, the youngest daughter of King Yongjo (r. 1724-1776), resided after marriage. Kwon purchased the 99chamber mansion, now designated Important Folklore Material No. 130, over 20 years ago when it had long been averted as a haunted house after the princess died an unfortunate death. Over these years, he has moved five smaller ancient Korean-style houses disassembled in the Seoul area to the surrounding estate and displayed at these houses the numerous folk art objects in his well-known collection. He is concentrating on the landscaping of the estate these days.

The establishment, already known widely among art-loving people, is designed as a magnum opus of Kwon and his dramatist wife, embodying their long wishes to share their love of arts with others.

Nevertheless, painting still is no doubt his greatest passion and his latest interest is in wall painting, probably triggered by his childhood memories of visiting the Koguryo period (37 B.C.-A.D, 668) tombs, now in North Korea. He seems to be attracted to the mysterious paintings of ancient religious themes on the walls of the centuries-old, dark burial chambers, intended to attend

The Sky, 1989, oil on canvas, 36.5x40 em.

the souls of the dead. The paintings were the manifestations of a timehonored Oriental belief in reincarnation; or the recycling of life and death, a philosophical subject with which Kwon has long been obssessed.

The coexistence of the contrasting notions of life and death is the theme for his recent painting, "Butterfly."

This 1987 work depicts almost the same motifs as his 1970 work, entitled "Love;' but with the addition of a woman lying on the ground with a huge rock descending to suppress her abdomen. Love and sterility, representing the concepts of life and death, interrelates in this painting of vivid mythical nuance.

In a notable contrast to his paintings usually prevailed by a heavy silence and somber dignity, Kwon, in his daily life, enjoys casual conversations with simple-hearted young girls or dilettantes with no prejudices

about art. Different from his imposing appearance with a stalwart physique in darkish-colored coats or suits, he adores simplicity and pursues freedom in style and taste disregarding theoretical bounds with as much enthusiasm as the late Park Su-geun or Yi chung-sop, his two favorite Korean artists. "A painter cannot paint when he grows older than lO years in mental age;' he says, with his bright smile that always hints his unconscious inclination to seek balance between a simple and blithe soul and deep anxiety and discreetness. +

Kim Young-uk is managing editor of Art Space Publications in Seoul.

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THE FIFTH KOREAN DANCE FESTIVAL:

'lbward a Creative Diversity

By Kim Tae-won

ork, Life and Dance" was the main theme of the Fifth Korean Dance Festival held from April 28 through May 4, International Dance Week, at the large hall of the Munye Theater in Tongsung-dong, Seoul under the joint sponsorship of the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation and the Korea Dance Institute.

Unlike last year's festival which centered around the theme of "Dance and Rite" and featured a large number of foreign dancers and dance groups including Gina Buntz (U.S.A.}, Kasar Akira and Setsuko Yamada (Japan}, and Christine Burgos and Anne Marie Raymond (France}, this year's festival seemed to opt for a somewhat cautious focus on Korean dance troupes, with eight domestic groups participating while only two foreign dancers were in attendance.

Nevertheless, in summary, the overall feeling of this year's festival was that the performances of the various Korean dance troupes were relatively even, whether they be from Seoul or the provinces (Ch'oi Eun-

''W

70

bee's Pusan-based Dance Company, and the Sium Dance Company from Ch'ongju were the two regional representatives}, and that Korean dance has developed and diversified a great deal both thematically and technically since its birth in the 1970s. Indeed, this year's festival has, to a certain extent, offset both the failure of previous festivals to create an organized festival-like atmosphere and the negative criticism which has in the past condemned some dance troupes for their insistence on presenting works which have little relation to the theme of the festival.

The trends in Korean modem dance reflected in the Fifth Dance Festival can be divided into three basic categories.

The first category is a pure, lyrical style which emphasizes the beauty and movement of Korean dance. The second category can be characterized as the trend toward the expression or use of symbolism to examine conflict and real problems which emerge out of Korea's particular political, historical and social structure. And finally the third class of

modem Korean dance is that which appeals to or leans upon a mythor ritual- oriented world view which finds its roots in the mental state of an individual or group. The Riul Dance Company's "Way" and the Changmu Dance Company's "Bow" clearly belong in the first category, while "The Dandelion Kingdom" choreographed by Im Hak-son and "Sister, Oh My Sister" created by Ch'oi Eun-hee fall into the second category. Kuk Su-ho's "Fire in Configuration," Chae Sang-mook's "Soul Shaking Body Language;' and Chong Jae-man's "The Marriage of the Sun and the Moon" belong to the third category.

Let us tum first to Pae Chong-hye's "Way" performed by the Riul Dance Company and "Bow," performed by the Changmu Dance Company and choreographed by Kang Mi-ri. The two works can be counted among the successes of this year's festival because they so effectively revealed the aesthetic of modem Korean dance through their posture and movement.

Of all the works of Pae Chong-hye, one of Korea's leading choreographers,

circles in time with the delicate, quick beat of a piece of wood. Moving around the stage on their heels, they flow with the beat, displaying the joy and rapture of professional dancers. Sometimes their movements are so brisk that it seems that their motions back and forth across the stage and around in circles are like a painter using a brush to make bold strokes across an empty canvas.

Thus, the latter part of "Way" is witty and nimble and reveals a unique playfulness found in simple movements. The brisk walking motions using the dancers' heels, the movements of the feet like some great pinwheel and the tangled movements of the arms and legs all reflect the sharp sensibility of the choreographer. The introduction of children's nursery rhymes in the middle section and final half of the work as well as the huge pinwheel which descends from the ceiling in the latter section add to the depth ¡ and feeling of "Way." These elements symbolize a retrogression or return to our child-like character or dreams which can never be erased no matter where we go.

"Bow," a work created by young choreographer Kang Mi-ri and performed by the Changmu Dance Company, finds its inspiration in the sea. This work successfully expresses through dance the image of waves and human pain, and anticipation :;> through the movement of those 8lE' images. In fact, Kang's expression in ~ this work jnvites interesting comparifi sons to the modern dancer Doris ~ Humphries' "Water Study." ÂŽ Kang Mi-ri's "Bow" begins and The fifth Korean Dance Festival under the title "Work, Life and Dance" was a chance to ends with the beat of the pak appreciate the form contemporary Korean dance is taking. (a clapper-like instrument made of six wooden slates bound together six dancers form a large circle to one with a leather cord in the shape of "Way" reflects the greatest sense of side of an abstract painting of a a fan and used in traditional Korean modernity. In this work, the revolving shape. The lighting is dark, music), thus enabling the audience choreographer has eliminated a cerbut the dancers are lit by a rectangle to experience the transition of time tain literary nuance and has instead of light. The dancers move in time to at high tide. portrayed the fate of humanity, the an intermittent drumbeat, someThe dancers generally move in a lives of which can not remain times twisting their faces and bodies quick succession of movements unchanged, with relatively pure into strange shapes and making gathering and raising their shoulders movements through the comic weird sounds. Some dancers contort and then releasing them, and brisk expressions, nimble and witty arm their mouths, others stick out their dipping motions, much like the formotions and the traditional Korean tongues while their companions roll mation and descent found in the dance steps of the six dancers (Kim their eyes this way and that. action of waves. Added to this is a Su-hyon, Kim Hyon-suk, Chong UnNext the dancers, each like a leaf rolling motion expressing the longing suk, Kim Hyon-mi, Hwang Un-jin, driven by the wind, swing their and will of the wave (humanity 0 Rejina). arms, stiffened like spears, around in itself). The bending and cascading In the first part of the work, the

72

presence of the Changmu Dance Company's performer (Hong Yunson, Kim Yong-bok, Yi Mi-a, Kim Un-hui, Ch'oi Li-na, et al) and their efforts as an ensemble are worthy of our attention. Kang Mi-ri's composition which attempts to accentuate the dynamic , contrasting their stop and start motions, together with her fresh and spare use of her dancers, proves that she is a very creative young dancer well worth our attention. lm Hak-son's "The Dandelion Kingdom" and Ch'oi Eun-hee's "Sister, Oh My Sister" fall into the second category I have mentioned, symbolizing or satirizing through dance the aggression and resistance we have experienced from outside influences throughout our nation's history as well as the issue of exploitation and violation.

In "The Dandelion Kingdom;' the aggressors are men who wear red costumes and carry wooden rakes which they wave threateningly. The victims are helpless dandelions (female dancers) dressed in and protected by nothing more than their thin yellow costumes. The choreographer takes these two different types of strength, that of the flowers and that of the rakes or aggressors, and develops a varied dance form through the dynamic relation between the two forces. By creating the image of very intense theatrical dance in the beginning and end portions of the work, the choreographer tries to overcome an insipidness which could result from too obvious a confrontation.

The movements of the female dancers in the first part of the piece when their arms were piled one on top of the other as if they were symbolizing the transmission of the energy of the earth in spring and the final scene when a single finger rises up like a fine thread from the heap of dead bodies, harassed and exhausted at the end of the dance, are not only magical but even possess a certain hypnotic quality.

In addition, the facial expressions of the heroine dandelion (lm Hakson), the circular group dance led by Yun Sun-ja, and especially the powerful dancing of the aggressors (Kim Chae-duk, Ch'oi T'ae-son, Chong Song-hun and Kang Sung-gu)

made this production most commendable.

If the "Dandelion Kingdom" is focused on drama and symbolism, then "Sister, Oh My Sister;' choreographed by Ch'oi Eun-hee, is an effort to achieve a satirical easygoing attitude and lyricism. In this work, the choreographer tries to portray in a frank and realistic manner the life of modern Korean women who can not help but engage in prostitution servicing foreigners (particularly Japanese).

For this reason, the choreographer uses the melody of the popular song "Come Back to Pusan Harbor " in her work as well as students from the dance department at Kyongsang University to play both the women and the Japanese men who used and exploited them. Then Ch'oi Eun-hee herself takes on the role of the original model for Korean womanhood, unexploited, expressing herself through the quiet posture and walking style of the traditional woman.

The movements of the male dancers beating the floor with their feet as they stride back and forth across the stage, the seductive motions of the sisters and their dance, the ideal of the Korean woman caught between the two, ever quiet and persevering. One is left with a feeling that something is lacking: if only the melody of the song "Come Back to Pusan Harbor" had been repeated again; if only the dancers' motions had been amplified or expanded a little more. Also, the model of the original ideal of Korean womanhood could have displayed deeper and richer expressions and movements.

Nevertheless, "Sister, Oh My Sister" definitely gives us a taste of the powerful satirical and critical function of which Korean modern dance is capable.

Kuk Su-ho's "Fire by Configuration;' Chae Sang-mook's "Soul Shaking Body Language" and Chong Jaeman's "The Marriage of the Sun and the Moon" all fall into the third category of thematic dancing which has been relatively common in Korea's modern dance community to date but which was not shown to its best advantage at this festival.

"Fire by Configuration" is an examination of the coexistence of

two elements, a shamanistic soul and the traditional feminine (or taken a little further, the traditions of shamanism and Confucianism) within the mind of the male dancer (Kuk Su-ho) as well as the background which lies behind the two elements. Chae Sang-mook's "Soul Shaking Body Language" also uses dance to deal with an intangible impulse and mysterious spiritual calling which exists within Korean tradition.

Chong Jae-man's "The Marriage of the Sun and the Moon" portrays the union of the Korean concept of the cosmos and the principle of the yin and the yang through the use of male and female dancers dressed in luxurious costumes, and on the other hand, celebrates Korea's traditional agricultural culture which praises both poverty and hard work.

A problem which constantly haunts dancers who depend deeply on themes and techniques from the traditional and ritual dance world is an exaggerated expression of subjective emotion and dance postures which have not expressively verbalized. The creation of works of dance which rely solely upon carriage or bearing which are already familiar to us in Korea's traditional dance and the insistence on using only a few dance-like gestures which have no meaning of their own strikes me as a very simplistic and slapdash approach to dance.

"Bridle;' choreographed by Pak Sei-hui qf the Swei-om Dance Company from Ch'ongju does not really fit into any of the three categories I have delineated. This work which actually stirs up memories of modern dance in its earliest years catches the audience's eye with its fresh and economical choreography, but the work would have benefited from a more specific expression through motions and symbolism of the vague concept of "bridle."

Finally, let us turn to the foreign participants in this year's festival.

Of the two works by foreign dancers, leslie Friedman (U.S.A.) and Hanayagi Omote (Japan), Ornate's work was given greater attention by the Korean audience. In her work entitled "Circle" (Limitless Bloodline?), Ornate created a space using a traditional screen, and wearing

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A movement from the Changmu Dance Company's presentation "Bow" under the direction of young choreographer Kang Mi¡ri.

a slightly simplified kimono, the dancer moved her feet in the traditional shuffle of the Japanese woman, keeping her upper body rigidly upright, and using her arms and upper body to create movements which were both geometric and flowing.

For Omote, dance is not something three dimensional, but rather is a kind of trace or indicator (perhaps a genealogy) created through spiritual concentration and physical movement. The branch of a live willow tree brought out in the midst of the performance by the sun carried with it a sense of the vitality of nature, and the dancer demonstrated a strange, somewhat shamanistic spirituality through her movements.

Omote's tidy bearing, her concentration, her abrupt, sharp and at times geometric movements of her arms and body, and her control of her emotions all suggested that her

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intellectual understanding of dance is very much in the mold of Lucinda Childs who experimented with the geometric dance of the postmodern dance world, although the roots of her art are, of course, to a certain extent in Japanese tradition.

In conclusion, we can say that this year's Dance Festival constitutes the starting point for a differentiation of Korean modern dance into several major categories. That is to say, until now modern dance in Korea was caught inside a common consciousness in which change or transformation in the themes or techniques used in this art form was unthinkable. The movements in dance were always connected with some particular significance, narrative or ritual, while an aesthetic joy in the vital movement itself was never cultivated. In works such as "Way" and "Bow;' however,this taboo has been quietly broken.

In addition, works like "Sister, Oh My Sister" show us how modern Korean dance can absorb nutrients from our traditional dance, and, in accordance with the creative intent of the dancers, deal with modern issues dressing the dancers in modern clothes if they like. (In fact, this approach has been investigated by other dance groups like Mun 11ji's Korean Dance Academy, Ch'ump'ae and Ahop.)

If we were to add the neo-classical and intellectual trends found in Omote's work to this movement toward diversification in the world of Korean modern dance, we can achieve the opening of a new age of artistic Korean dance, building on the expansion we have achieved over the recent years. + Kim Tae-won is a dance crit ic.

REVIEW/DRAMA

'1\ND THEN THEY DIE'' Korean Theater Confronts Greek 'fragedy

By Ku Hee-seo

he Free Theatre Group's staging of their new work, ''And .Then They Die;' at the Munye Theatre (May 9-22) was yet another testing of their theatrical technique. This work is based on the troupe's central theme of "life and death" and on their fundamental methodology founded in group creativity, montage, total theatre and the narrative method.

This production is the Free Theatre Group's second venture into Western drama, the first being their staging of Frederico Garcia Lorca's "Blood Wedding." "And Then They Die" is a compilation of three Greek tragedies, Aeschylus' ''Agamemnon," Sophocles' "Hecate" and Euripides' "Electra."

The resulting play is divided into three sections, each of which centers around the numerous deaths which occur in the original dramas. The names and costumes worn by the characters as well as the stage design have been converted into Korean language and motifs. Thus Agamemnon is Queen A-sun, Clytemnestra is Queen Kurume, Electra is Princess Aeri, Orestes is Prince 0-sun and Hecate is Queen Haesan. The costumes worn by these characters are slightly modernized versions of traditional Korean court attire.

On the walls of the Munye Theatre, a curtain made of the black plastic net farmers use to cover their green houses for shade is adorned with hanji (Korean paper) often used to decorate the site of a shamanistic ritual.

In this production, the Free Theatre Group has selected several of the tales of death portrayed in these Greek tragedies and linked them together like a chain, telling

T

the stories of the gods and the people near them who died and killed others as well as the deaths of people 0.~have led humanity through hi tory. e Free Theatre Group's production of "What Will I Become?" was amusing in its portrayal of Korea's indigenous linguistic intonations and dance movements, such as the characteristic shrugging of the shoulders. Their production of "Blood Wedding" stressed the intonations found in the recitation of poetry as well as poetic imagery. In this most recent production, it is clear that the form and ambience is somewhat different from the Free Theatre Group's previous works. The tone and movements are similar in some ways to "Blood Wedding;' but the oratorical feeling is much stronger, and the movements tend to lean in the direction of gestures calibrated to the oratory. lri this collection of Greek tragedies, the Free Theatre Group has

created some clearly excellent elements, such as their depiction of the deaths of other figures through the deaths portrayed in the original dramas and their creation of a new, essentially Korean form in their stage design and costumes. Nevertheless, one senses a certain triteness and deficiency in the dialogue. This flows forth from the awkwardness of the names of the main characters which have been transliterated from the Greek into Korean and the exaggerated, almost oratorical, tone of voice taken by the actors.

The older actors who have served as the backbone of the Free Theatre Group in the past are missing in this production and have been replaced with a group of relatively younger performers, revealing many clean young faces and fresh voices.

Queen Kurume portrayed by Kim Song-ja, an actress with ten years experience and four years with the Free Theatre Group, was somewhat lacking 'in enthusiasm but quite

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clean. King A-shin played by Kwon Pyong-gil, a veteran member of the troupe for more than 15 years, was lacking in stature. Son Pong-sun gave a strong performance as Princess Aeri, showing us just how much she has grown as an actress during her 12 years with the Group. King A-sun portrayed by Chong Chong-hwa also reflected the unique personality and color of that actor. The fresh tidiness and voices of most of the young actors and actresses did not exactly run contrary to the overall flavor of the production, but one felt something was missing, that somehow an outstretched hand had failed to reach its mark.

One has almost. come to expect the Free Theatre Group's use of its young actors and actresses to perform the p'ansori or dance scenes found in its group productions, rather than hiring professional performers, but while this is a cause for happiness in some cases, it also results in a certain feeling of emptiness.

The liveliness of some of the Group's earlier works, animated to the point that one wondered if it wasn't all just a bit too childish, has given way to a refined beauty which in itself can be a bit boring. Thus, while one can hope that the works of this Group are becoming more solid or sound, it is difficult to grasp any strong sense of affinity between our life in Korea today and stories from a distant country hundreds of years in the past. Indeed, the process or method by which this story is played out is really more interesting than the subject itself or its delivery.

The white softness of Kurume's lined garments, the silky ebony of Princess Aeri's costume, the impact of the black paper hung on the rear wall all help us better understand the meticulous efforts and methodology of the people who have created this drama.+ Ku Hee¡seo is a drama critic and a journalist with the Daily Sports Newspaper in Seoul.

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REVIEW/ART

HAIN¡DOO Art as a Microcosm of the Principle of Creation

By Kim In-hwan n Korea, the term "postwar generation" refers, of course, to the generation which became active following the Korean War which started in June 1950. The war had an enormous influence on all Korean society, and because it constituted a significant turning point in Korea's cultural development, it is always the subject of much debate. During the war itself, all cultural activity was temp0rarily halted, but following the ceasefire in 1953, great cultural changes ensued.

The painter Ha In-doo was a member of a relatively progressive group of painters belonging to the so-called "postwar generation." Active in the Modern Artists' Association (Hyondae Misulga Hyophoe), Ha could even be called one of the avant garde for his role in this exceptional group. As abstract expressionism, or more specifically, "L'art injormel;' penetrated Korea, a new wave of young artists who took a leading role in introducing and promoting new artistic trends came onto the scene.

A number of the artists who participated in this movement were university students during the Korean War. Several of these artists, including Kim Chang-yo! and Pak Seo-bo, continue to be active in the movement even today.

Abstract expressionism served as a detonator for the development of modern art in Korea and made a distinct contribution to the modern, transformation of art here.

Prior to his participation in this movement, Ha In-doo was simply an art student satisfied with paintings which were similar to Cezanne's.

This was a distinct characteristic of Ha's 1954 work "Self-portrait." He also had a l:emporary encounter with

I

the dismembered and partitioned expression found in cubism.

One can analyze Ha's work from a formal point of view assuming that abstract expressionism is the expression of a fresh liveliness on top of an extremely sensitive interconnecting thread, but the overall tendency in his work does not fit simply into that category. Because Ha's intellectual appearance and his meditative idiosyncracy did not permit him to limit his territory, his works have continued to change structurally.

Although there lies at the bottom of his works something which one might call a glimmer of lyricism, the geometric structure of his paintings which display such a solid attitude make it impossible for us to easily condemn his creations as abstract expressionism. Could we call it a kind of "post painterly abstraction"?

A chilliness which succeeds abstract expressionism gradually takes hold of the canvas, completely exposing the geometric structure of the work.

We must remember that Ha once was a student of literature with aspirations for a life in that field. He became a painter when he realized that he could no longer pursue literature for a living.

Ha In-doo spent the 1960s wandering. Stuck in an artistic slump for a short time, he embarked in a new direction, his freshly transformed works displaying a geometric frame and a kind of abstractness in color.

Ha's work during this period tended to be a bit gloomy or stifled by its unshakable symmetry and the repeated use of bands of color. I believe this tendency changed somewhat in sympathy, whether it was consciously or unconsciously, with the wave of Op Art which swept the

art world at that time. This was a tradition which we could call a metamorphosis from "Hot Abstractionism" to "Cold Abstractionism."

It was at this time that Ha was fascinated with Zen Buddhism. He was engrossed with Buddhist thought to the point that he affixed Buddhist titles to his paintings, although it is difficult to say whether his images reflected any specific aspect of Buddhist thought or if Buddhist symbols truly formed the core of his works. Regardless, traces of his efforts to move in that direction can be found in his works from this period. These paintings were an attempt to fuse in one canvas the East Asian religious foundation which has been handed down through history with the techniques and structures of Western art. The artist was thus establishing his own unique style through these investigations.

In Ha ln-doo 's work, we find a kind of dual structure; while pursuing a geometric partitioning of the canvas, he does not rely entirely on a strict geometric structure or absolute principle, but rather his works are a clear methodological attempt to deliberately select and utilize elements of both geometric principles and abstract expressionism, very much in the way he has rejected the more extreme expressionist elements of the abstract expressionist movement. With this, the chilly, cold and strong feeling of his paintings acquired a touch of warmth and sensitivity.

In the 1970s, Ha's artistic activity began to flourish as his contributions to both domestic and international showings multiplied. Ha's ambition was reflected in his entries to international exhibitions such as the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1969, the Indian Triennal in 1970, the France Cagnes International Painting Festival m 1971 and the Paris Comparative Exhibition in 1978. On the other hand, Ha remained active in the art movement in Korea as I mentioned above, expanding his participation to art criticism as well on the basis of his literary background.

Change in an artist's work is inevitable with the passage of time.

As Ha's rather solemn geometric structure of the 1960s gradually

Ha ln-doo's latest series of works are entitled Honbul, or "Soul Fire-Whirlwind of Light," and are covered with sparkling and dynamic colors moving around a central core representing the vitality of the inner person or the soul.

crumbled, paintings with a rhythmical use of space and somewhat symbolic character expressed through the remnants of dissolving shapes took their place. These works utilized a kind of collage technique in which the artist created a wide variety of shapes and forms by applying scrapes of torn paper to the canvas and then removing them after coloring over them. The canvas pulsated with a multitude of shapes reminiscent of waves which flowed around and gushed forth from the neutral background.

Korea's modern art movement is sometimes criticized for its excessive sensitivity to Western art trends over the years. In the midst of the great progressive whirlpool of this movement since the late 1950s, Ha In-doo has felt the functional restrictions which grow out of the struggle

between the need to emulate external influenc~s and the attachment or yearning for a tradition which is gradually slipping away.

Since the 1970s, Ha has had several opportunities to live in France, and with the knowledge and experience he has acquired during his residence at the center of Western culture, he has realized his own understanding of that civilization.

By directly observing and experiencing Western art on its own turf, Ha has been able to establish a more objective and rational foundation for his own work.

Not only Ha In-doo, but all Korean artists are faced with a dual challenge: the need to explore and harmonize the techniques, models, the spirit and thought of both Eastern and Western art. For this reason, Korean artists must make

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twice the effort to discover their personal essence and achieve a self awakening, compared to their Western colleagues.

Through his self-examination and realization that "Korean artists have simply followed the path of European art like puppets on a string," Ha has established his own East Asian aesthetic, devoting himself to artistic creation based on Zen thought.

The central theme of Ha's paintings are the mandala which could be called the wages of Zen thought, and the myokyehwanjung, the dynamical stable of the point. As Ha explains it, mandala is a reflection of the dignified function of mother nature and the image of the (Buddhist) world, and myokyehwanjung or the dynamical stable of the point is the dynamic pattern of that world. To simplify by using the metaphor of the lotus flower which is a symbol used in Buddhist thought, the lotus flower blooming in a muddy swamp is mandala while the earth which nourishes the flower is the myokyeh-

REVIEW/DANCE

SAENGCHUM A New Departure for Korean Dance

By Paul Mooney

im Hyun-ja, the veteran Korean dancer, and five dancers associated with her dance academy in Seoul, performed a unique two-part presentation without firm choreography at the large hall of the Munye ¡ Theater in Seoul May 25 and 26.

This was the first time in Korea that such a piece was staged. The production entitled "Saeng Chum" or "Bio Dance" proved to be a spectacular success. Kim Hyun-ja herself performed the first of the two pieces as wanjung. a solo presentation while the other In his most recent works, the artist performers joined her for the second has taken this kind of Buddhist spirit piece. Kim, who was originally a as his creative inspiration, generattraditional dancer, has proved that ing a body of works which could be the potential exists for a more sponseen as formalized around this spirit. taneous creative dance in Korea. The fruit of her efforts to develop Korean "I try to pull everything together to a single central point, intensifying creative dancing should begin to make its impact felt on the Korean them in my own way at the core."

(This is the mandala.) "One could contemporary dance scene over the say it is a microcosm of the principle coming years. of the creation of the universe as The title Saeng Chum is derived everything revolves around and from the Korean words saeng for life around a fixed center, twisting and and chum for dance. So it would be compressing tightly." (This is the appropriate to translate the title as myokyehwanjung.) The artist is "living dance" and this concept trying to fuse all these roots from expresses the changing nature of life Buddhist thought into the canvas. through the very meaning of the Ha In-du's paintings reflect the dance itself. Thus for her the centripetal development of the flowmedium of expression and the mesing and dividing lines which strive to sage being conveyed are inextricably find the center. The arrangement of linked together. Therefore, the dance, the brilliant colors on the canvas which allows for change and sponenables us to feel the rapture of taneity, is analogous to life itself and enlightenment through the painting. expresses the fact that nothing is This artist who was suddenly eternal and that everything is desstruck down by illness and recently tined to change as it goes through took up his brush again is filled with the natural cycle of life and death. a renewed passion for his work. He Creation, for her, is not something speaks as if he were crying out: "Art fixed but something that continually is the savior of humanity." + recurs in the ceaseless cycle of birth ¡ and death that characterizes earthly Kim Jn.hwan is an art critic and a professor at existence.

Chason University in Kwanju.

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K

The 42-year-old dancer, who is an associate professor in the Dance Department at Pusan National University, expresses her theory of creative dance in Oriental philosophical terms that may not be familiar to non-Orientals. The first important concept that she relies heavily on is ch'i. It can be roughly translated as energy or spirit. When applied to a person it refers to one's . individual spiritual flow. This concept is counterbalanced by that of li, which is usually rendered as reason or principle in English. As li is abstract and indefinite, its function in art is to give form to the flow of the ch'i. Thus, the two concepts do not exist in separation from each other. While Kim Hyun-ja stresses the importance of expressing one's individual spiritual flow in creative dance, she does not ignore the regulating function of reason. Ultimately Kim's main objective is to depart from an artificial mannerism which has stifled much of the creative expression in dance.

The first dance on the program at the Munye Theater was entitled "Becoming Nothing Again." In this dance Kim Hyun-ja portrayed what she described as a "humble liberation" made possible through the expression of the spiritual flow inside oneself. Part of the dance was performed without musical accompaniment. The image of an incessant breeze was used to express the idea of change and these themes of change and creativity were obivious in the movement of the dance. Ms. Kim's expertise as a dancer carried the solo performance which could have been tedious if performed by a lesser dancer. Added to the expression of one's inner spiritual flow

which brings about the "humble liberation" of which Kim Hyun-ja speeks of is the necessity for wisdom which perceives and accepts change.

The second dance then provided quite a contrast to the first. The stage was stripped of the decorations used in the solo performance and two boulders of ice were placed in the center of the stage with Kim Hyun-ja taking her position on a platform raised up on top of the two boulders. Four smaller blocks of ice were suspended from the ceiling. The effect of the melting ice dropping onto the stage proved to be a very crucial part of the dance as it progressed. The five dancers in Ms. Kim's troupe took their places around the raised platform. Their vigorous movement was in contrast to the restrained pose of Ms. Kim herself who remained on the platform for the duration of the piece.

The five dancers, who are all graduates or students of Professor Kim's dance academy, gave themselves completely to the performance which was entitled "Realizing Nothing Remains Unchanged." Again the basic underlying idea was the fact of change and of creation recurring continously in the cycle of nature.

Also Kim Hyun-ja wanted to convey the idea that if we perceive humanity as part of nature then we can view nature as being in some way immanent in our human bodies. For Kim, this observation is the key to discovering a language of deep and beautiful aesthetic wisdom that our bodies are freed to express. With the dance freed from the rigors of detailed choreography and the dancer possessing an enhanced consciousness of dance as an expression of his or her inner spiritual flow, the potential for a truly creative form of dance is unleashed.

This is precisely what happened with the performance of "Realizing Nothing Remains Unchanged" as the five dancers developed their dance into an active expression of their inner spiritual resources. The music which accompanied the dance was

by Ann 11-woong and it succeeded perfectly in matching the mood of the dance and giving a pace to the movement. The melting chunks of ice which were meant to give the idea that nothing is eternal also

A scene from the dance piece "Realizing Nothing Remains Unchanged" in which the dancers gave a full expression of their inner spiritual flow.

filled the stage with pools of water, the great symbol of life and creation.

And the water, rather than hampering the dancers, gave a mysterious primal quality to their movements.

This release of the ch'i in each individual dancer in a collective action brought great power to the performance coupled with a naturalness that underscored both Kim Hyun-ja's philosophy of dance and the message of the piece itself.

The five dancers were Lee Hyekyung, Park Mi-young, Kang Mi-sun, Chang Ouk-ran and Jung Seon-hye.

They all received formal dance train¡ ing before they joined the Kim Hyunja Dance Academy, four of them having graduated from colleges in Pusan and one from a university in Seoul. In addition, Kang Mi-sun completed her graduate studies at the School of Education at Ewha

Womans University. Both Kang and Park Mi-young directed their own pieces at the Saenam 88-l dance presentation in conjunction with their graduation from the first class of the Kim Hyun-ja Dance Academy.

The dancers' high level of training was evident in their skill at interpreting the dance without firm choreography and being able to flow with the movement of the dance in a way that was a first for a public performance of dance in Korea by a Korean dance troupe.

Kim Hyun-ja has been awarded various awards in her dancing career, among which is the New Artist Prize at the First Republic of Korea Culture and Arts Awards for her part in the production "Hwang Jin-Ie." She was awarded the Performance Prize in the Fourth Republic of Korea Dance Festival for the

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Kim Hyun-ja in a totally natural and relaxed poise during her solo presentation "Becoming Nothing Again.''

production "Yulyeomoon." She took the Grand Prize in the Sixth Republic of Korea Dance Festival for the production "Hoi." It is significant that she began her career in traditional dance as the training required in Korean traditional dance is aimed at making a restrained expression of the artist's ch'i in conformity with the principles and required movements of the art form . This probably explains the very Oriental categories which she uses to explain her theory of dance and her journey into a less structured creative dance.

Kim's rise to prominence in the Korean dance scene brought her an invitation to perform at the Asia Society in New York. She later went on to become standing dance director of the Pusan City Dance Troupe and of the Lucky Creative Dance Troupe. These two posts won Kim a position of influence in the Korean dance world and it is to be hoped that the spontaneity and creativity that Kim has communicated to her students at the dance academy will make its impression on the wider world of Korean dance in the future.

Meanwhile, the veteran dancer is far

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Dancer enraptured by the dance

from disappearing from the dance scene. Her rna jor works such as "A Weathercock," "A Leap Month of April," "Barley F lute;' "Golden Bough" and "From Division to Combination;' have all taken their place in her formation as an artist, director and choreographer. It is to be expected that they will be followed by other pieces as her style takes on

its mature expression and continues to develop.

The sets used in the two pieces presented at the Munye Theater were arranged by Lee Ho-jong with lighting by Lee Sang-bong and Choi Hyung-oh. The lighting for the production, which was without detailed instructions, demanded a keen sensitivity to the movement of the dance. Those in charge of this task managed to interpret the changes perfectly. The costumes by Lee Soo-dong proved to be both functional and graceful enough to accommodate the free movement of the dancers. All these different aspects were well handled by Kim Hyun-ja who herself took full responsibility for the direction and choreography of her troupe. The Korean Culture and Arts Foundation, which is a public body, sponsored the production as part of its program to assist creative artists specially selected for their original contributions to the performing arts. + Paul Mooney is a freelance writer specializing in Korean culture and history.

ART NEWS

Eighth International Modem Dance Festival The eighth International Modern Dance Festival opened at the Hoam Art Hall in Seoul on Wednesday, June 7, with 12 Korean groups and three foreign groups participating. As such the four-day festival was a good opportunity to compare modern Korean dance with foreign dance. The three foreign troupes from the United States, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom did not disappoint the Korean audiences and the performances by the Korean entries ranged from lyrical to modern and abstract. The Korean entries also included their own versions of works that originated outside Korea with the Zoom group presenting a dance version of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot." On the opening day of the festival, the Dongrang Dance Ensemble presented the piece "Dance Music"with music by Berlinbased Korean composer, Yun I-sang.

The festival was jointly sponsored by the Joong-Ang Daily News and the Korea Modern Dance Association.+

Seminar on Korean Young Volunteers "The Role of Korean Youth in World Peace and Development" was the topic of a seminar sponsored by the Korea UNESCO Committee and held on Friday, June 9 in Seoul. The seminar heard a range of opinions on the proposed scheme to send young Korean volunteers to work in Southeast Asian, African and Latin American countries from next year. Young people between the ages of 20 and 30 will be eligible to participate in the program and after having completed a five-month training period, they will be placed in their overseas assignments. They will be expected to work in the hygiene, agriculture, medical care, welfare, youth activities, education and sports fields. The Korean Young Volunteers will be modeled after similar counterparts in foreign countries and it is expected that they will be able to draw on the experience of such organizations as the U.S. Peace Corps and the Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. Cho Sung-ok, secretary general of the Korean UNESCO Committee, and Lee Young-duk, vice president of the Korean Red Cross, gave keynote speeches at the seminar. +

composition "The Song of Dark Souls."

In all, the duet performed their excellent but quite dissimilar pieces three times on the two days, with one performance on June 16 and two on June 17.+

Koh Jeong-soo's Sculptures of Women Exhibited Koh Jeong-soo, a former professor turned full-time sculptor, opened his exhibition of female sculptures on a common theme of women, nature and modem society at the outdoor sculpture exhibition park at the Hotel Shilla in Seoul. Koh has been working on these ll large pieces over the last year and they truly present a distinct view of woman devoid of the eroticism that usually characterizes female representations by male sculptors. Koh's female nudes are rotund figures that display a meaninful posture despite their apparently girlish faces. Koh also has

Lee Chong-hee's and Nam Chong-ho's Korean Post-Modem Dance Korea's two talented post-modern dancers, Lee Chung-hee and Nam Chong-ho, presented their latest works at the Dongsung Art Center's main hall in Seoul on June 16 and 17. Both dancers have been at the forefront of developments in Korea's extremely active contemporary dance scene. Both dancers have succeeded in developing a dance style that is ultra-modern and unmistakably Korean. Lee in particular reaches back into the tradition of Korean exorcist dance and uses her dance as an act of exorcising the 1 grudges and resentments she feels as ~ a result of the political and social ~ envoirnment. Nam presented her own ~ pieces "A Child Plucking the Moon" ~ and "Self-Portrait" at the unique two @ day event, while Lee presented her

chosen granite as his medium in preference to Italian marble. In this choice of materials, as in his subjects,Koh is seeking to return to something essentially Korean. Koh has been inspired by Korea's ancient and exquisite statues of the Buddha and Korea's other traditional sculptures and stone constructions. This search into the aesthetic sense of traditional Korean culture has in this exhibition given the 42year- old artist's works a distinctive character that bodes well for the future of sculpture as an art form in Korea .â&#x20AC;˘

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ART NEWS

Chung Myung-whun Appointed Director of the Bastille Opera Korean conductor Chung Myungwhun was officially appointed conductor of France's Bastille Opera on Thursday May 2, 1989 in a move that has brought the 36-year-old pianist-turned conductor to the forefront of the international music scene. Chung is younger brother of world-renowned vioinist Chung Kyung-wha, who is currently based in Lmdon ..Along with his other sister Myung-hwa, a noted cellist, the three Chungs regularly perform and record as the internationally celebrated Chung Trio. Chung succeeds Daniel Barenboim who resigned from the directorship of the Bastille Opera in February this year. Chung's contract will last for the next five years and it will require the musician-conductor to devote at least six months each year to the Bastille Opera. Chung is currently principal guest conductor of the Florence Opera and is music director of the Saarbrucken Radio Orchestra. Chung first came into prominence on the international scene in 1974 when he won fourth place in the Tchaikovsky Competition piano division. It is expected that his first task at the Bastille Opera will be to recruit musicians for the orchestra as the Bastille's predecessor, the Paris Opera, was disbanded last year along with its orchestra. +

BOOKS From the Streets to the Olympics Korea Democracy and the 24th Olympiad, 1987-'88 This book by Korean-American photographer Hyungwon Kang is a testimony to the power of the photograph to capture and convey the stories of our times. In this case the story is

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BOOKS that of Korea's turbulent and glorious days from June 1987 through the successful hosting of the 24th Olympiad in September 1988. Kang brings us on a pictorial odessy that begins with tear gas and street demonstrations and c:ulminates in the Closing Ceremony of the Seoul Olympics at the Chamsil Stadium. In the intervening months, presidential and national assembly elections were held in a free and democratic manner, leaving Korea with a president and a government that could

not be denied legitimacy. The unprecedented opening of society also brought a share of labor problems and Kang's camera was there also to record these events for us to see.

Hyungwon Kang, who also wrote the text for this book, is currently a photographer for Time Magazine as well as working for the Los Angeles Times where he received his internship.

Kang left Korea with his family at age 13 and received his high school and college education in the U.S. He graduated with a B.A. in political science from the University of California at iDs Angeles (UCLA) in 1986 and soon after went to Seoul to cover the lOth Asian Games. As a young photojournalist with his particular background and training, Kang has been uniquely equipped to write this book in three languages: "Korean, English and Photojournalism." The book will prove to be an invaluable resource for anybody interested in modern Korea and the

crucial events of 1987-1988. The foreword is by Barry Hillenbrand, Time Magazine's chief of bureau in Tokyo and the 304 page book is published

by Art Space Publications in Seoul.

Korean At A Glance The cover of this book declares that it is two books in one - a phrase book and a dictionary. However "Korean At A Glance" proves to be more than a conventional phrase book cum dictionary for it is in fact a very good introduction to Korean life and culture.

The small book includes helpful notes at the start of each section on life in Korea and even the choice of the phrases gives evidence of the authors' familiarity with Korean culture. Daniel Holt and his wife Grace Massey Holt first came to Korea in the early 1970s as Peace Corps volunteers and they both lived here until 1976. Their association with Korea has remained strong however and they have visited to Korea a total of four times since returning to the United States.

The book, which is published by Barron's Publishing Company in New York, has already proved to be quite successful since it was launched last year in the U.S. and chalked up sales of some 8,000 copies in the AugustDecember period. The book will prove useful for anybody from tourists and business people coming to the country for a short period to those coming for a longer stay who will not have the formal opportunity to learn Korean in language school. "Korean At A Glance" covers such situations as meeting people, shopping, getting around town and such important matters as banking and visiting the doctor. The Holts' familiarity with Korean life and culture insures that even such sensitive topics as gift giving and receiving are covered. While, the experience they have amassed in organising orientation sessions for American business people coming to Korea shows through in their simple and yet perceptive presentation of Korea and its language. +

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We deliver what you deserve: the best. · Just a few of our visible accomplishments: annual trade volume of $2 billion; a Guiness Book record with construction of the world's tallest hotel in Singapore's Raffles City Complex; the world's largest single cement production facility; total sales volume in 1988 of well over $6 billion.

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