This book provides a comprehensive overview of the historical background, genres, and performers of the traditional performing arts of Korea, such as puppet plays, mask dramas, and Pansori, a uniquely Korean form of narrative song, which originated from the singing and dancing traditions of the ancient Korean people. It offers a detailed introduction to a variety of Korea's traditional performing arts. The book also provides references on related research sources in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, about Korea's traditional performing arts, for those with an interest in conducting in-depth research, along with featuring some 70 photographs to highlight the noteworthy characteristics of Korean performing arts.

This book offers an exploration of the intersection of Korean theatre practice with Western literary theatre. Gangnam Style, K-Pop, the Korean Wave : who hasn't heard of these recent Korean phenomena? Having spent two years in Korea as a theatrical and cultural ‘tourist’, Patrice Pavis was granted an unparalleled look at contemporary Korean culture. As well as analyzing these pop culture mainstays, however, he also discovered many uniquely Korean jewels of contemporary art and performance. Examining topics including contemporary dance, puppets, installations, modernized pansori, 'Koreanized' productions of European Classics and K-pop and its parody, this book provides a framework for an intercultural and globalized approach to Korean theatre. With the first three chapters of the book outlining methodology, the remaining chapters test – often deconstructing and transforming in the process - this framework, using focused case studies to introduce the reader to the cultural and artistic world of a nation with an increasing international presence in theatre and the arts alike.

"Korean Theatre: From Rituals to the Avant-Garde is the most comprehensive book on Korean theatre which covers from ancient rituals to the modern theatre. It is an essential book for anyone who is interested in theatre or Korean theatre . . . The research that went in to make this book possible can only be described as phenomenal." Alyssa Kim, Ph.D. Hankuk University of Foreign Studies "The book has a clear, understandable organization. Professor Cho’s prose is succinct, readable, and void of fashionable academic jargon. I find the chapter beginning-historical context very useful, most especially those surrounding and shaping Korean theatre since the ‘50s. The early chapters on masked-dance plays and puppet theatre provide important information about Korean culture and the later chapters on Madanggŭk and North Korean proletarian drama shed light on area little known or understood by Western students of Korea. This book promises to be a singular contribution to English-language materials on Korean theatre, one written by a scholar with an encyclopedic knowledge of his subject." Richard Nichols, Ph.D. Emeritus Professor of Theatre Pennsylvania State University

This book illustrates how local awareness of Western cultural hegemonic entities such as Broadway and Shakespeare have been implemented within South Korean theatre in the global era. With a focus on performances that targeted global audiences, Lee explores the ways in which Korea's nationalistic desires for global visibility are projected on stage.

In 1978, four musicians crowded into a cramped basement theater in downtown Seoul, where they, for the first time, brought the rural percussive art of p’ungmul to a burgeoning urban audience. In doing so, they began a decades-long reinvention of tradition, one that would eventually create an entirely new genre of music and a national symbol for Korean culture. Nathan Hesselink’s SamulNori traces this reinvention through the rise of the Korean supergroup of the same name, analyzing the strategies the group employed to transform a museum-worthy musical form into something that was both contemporary and historically authentic, unveiling an intersection of traditional and modern cultures and the inevitable challenges such a mix entails. Providing everything from musical notation to a history of urban culture in South Korea to an analysis of SamulNori’s teaching materials and collaborations with Euro-American jazz quartet Red Sun, Hesselink offers a deeply researched study that highlights the need for traditions—if they are to survive—to embrace both preservation and innovation.