History of Korean Entertainment

Traditional Korean Performance

Korean theatre is theater done on stage by Koreans or within Korea or by overseas Koreans. Korean theater remains vibrant today. Korean theater before the 20th century was more 'performance' than 'drama'. There was no plot driven drama, and all the performative presentations, including dance, shaman ritual, and circus were called Nolum (놀음) or Yeonhee (연희), which means 'playing'.

Talchum Performance

Up till the 19th century the leading form of Korean public theatre was Talchum (탈춤) and Pansori (판소리). Talchum literally means mask-dance. Multiple players wearing masks performed a loosely fixed text through dance, dialogue and song. Since the performers were able to conceal their identities, many of the plays that were played were satires.

Pansori Performance

Pansori is a form of storytelling. There is one central performer who, through dialogue and song goes through a whole story, and another performer who adds rhythm and mood to the story by beating on a drum and putting in verbal sounds (‘chuimsae’-추임새). Neither Talchum nor Pansori had a fixed script – they were handed down orally from generation to generation.

After Korea opened its doors to the foreign countries in late 19th century, the first modern indoor theater, Hyopyul-sa(협률사) was built in 1902, and the ‘new plays’ (신극) started to come through. ‘New plays’ was the term Korean thespians used for the Western drama at that time. The proscenium stage was introduced as well as Shakespeare, and there was a movement among the theater practitioners to define a line between the traditional Korean theater and the new wave. Nowadays the traditional forms are continued by the "living national treasures"; people who are selected by the government for having exceptional skill in a traditional art and are funded to pass it down.

Hyopyul-sa

Contemporary Korean theater has three main directions. First there are the government funded theaters such as The National Theater and Seoul Performing Arts Center. The main repertory consists of Korean traditional theatre and classics such as Shakespeare and Chekhov. The second direction happens at Daehakro (대학로), the ‘off-Broadway’ or ‘off-off-Broadway’ of Seoul, Korea. Most of the theater that takes place in Daehakro is independent and experimental. The last but largest direction is that of the popular theater  .Many corporate companies have built big theater spaces in Seoul that are mainly used to stage big musicals and translations of Broadway hits. But whereas these three categories can give one an idea about contemporary Korean theater  one also needs to keep in mind that the three often intermingle, so sometimes you find experimental theater at a corporate theatre and a Broadway musical on Daehakro.