On the afternoon of February 11 local time, the sound of sogo drums spread across Times Square in Manhattan, New York. It was the opening of 'Korea on Stage in New York,' held jointly by the Korea Heritage Service, the Korea Heritage Agency and the Korean Cultural Center New York. On the large screens surrounding the square, videos introducing Korea's national heritage and traditional culture played, and the event ran for four days.
The square in February is cold. The sound of a sogo, its thin leather struck against the palm, and the shape of skirt hems swelling with the wind lingered long among the gray buildings. The performance in the square began at 3 p.m., and the Korea Heritage Agency's art troupe and the Chumnuri Korean Traditional Dance Company took the stage.
At 7 p.m. that same day, the opening ceremony was held at the Korean Cultural Center in Manhattan. Some 250 people gathered, among them Korea Heritage Service Administrator Heo Min, Korea Heritage Agency President Lee Kwi-young, Korean Cultural Center New York Director Kim Cheon-su, Ambassador Cha Ji-hoon of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations and Acting Consul General Lee Sang-ho of the Korean Consulate General in New York, along with figures from the local arts and culture world. Kevin Woo, known for the 'Saja Boys' of 'KPop Demon Hunters,' was among the attendees. Administrator Heo said he would spread word of the beauty of Korean heritage handed down over thousands of years, and that the popularity of K-culture comes from the depth of that heritage.
The event was built around a media art exhibition, a traditional crafts exhibition, traditional arts performances and a temple food program. At the cultural center, a sculpture recreating a haetae statue and a peony sculpture stood for the four days. On the 12th and 13th, the art troupe's 'Wishes in Motion' was staged in the center's basement theater, with Cheoyongmu, Taepyeongmu, sogochum, Jindo Bukchum and Ganggangsullae following one after another.
On the 12th, a temple food demonstration was held at the CIA, a culinary education institution in the United States. A hands-on session applying gold leaf to a hanji fortune pouch was also prepared. At the moment thinly beaten gold settles onto the grain of the paper, heritage moves from an object of viewing to a texture at the fingertips.
This attempt, which put the fan dance, the haetae statue, Joseon bojagi, gold leaf craft, court dance and temple food on show as a single set, is a choice to get out from behind the glass of the display case. Artifacts are safest when they sit still under the lights, but that safety borders on being forgotten. Conversely, heritage placed on a stage wears down and shifts a little as much as it draws applause. There is no way to smoothly stitch shut the friction between dancing in a public square and keeping the original form.
Nationally designated heritage in Korea numbers some 4,000 items, of which 17 are UNESCO World Heritage sites and 20 are Memory of the World records. Audiences abroad will have no occasion to memorize this list. What the people who passed through the square over those four days carried away was the resonance of drum skin and the color of a red skirt.
The Korea Heritage Service plans to continue its 'National Heritage Visit Campaign' in Paris, France and elsewhere after New York. When and on what scale the next stage will open is still being decided. The four days in New York are over and the square has gone back to being a city of advertising screens. The next person to meet this dance will stop mid step on some street in Paris, hands tucked into a winter coat.
