The National Intangible Heritage Center under the Korea Heritage Service is holding the Hip:Pan Festival. It opens Aug. 21, and the venue is the Grand Theater. This is the first time the event has been staged. The festival runs through the 29th, and the performances are concentrated on the 21st and 22nd, and the 28th and 29th.
The National Intangible Heritage Center joined HIP and pan in the festival's name. The idea is to take intangible heritage out of the display case and into the yard where the audience stamps its feet.
Ambiguous Dance Company is the contemporary dance team that put "Beom Naeryeo Onda" into movement in the Korea Tourism Organization promotional video "Feel the Rhythm of Korea." Chudahye Chagis presents "Minority" on the 28th and 29th. It is a stage where the voice of shamanic song (muga) and a band sound become one body.
That same month, a young stage is set in Daejeon as well. Aug. 27 at 7:30 p.m., the Small Hall of the Daejeon Yeonjeong National Gugak Center. It is the second stage of "Gugak Daejeon, Young Pan."
The program was created to give a stage to young gugak musicians and groups working in Daejeon. The center announced the schedule on the 17th.
That evening's stage belongs to the creative group "Project Bit." The title is "Afterimage." It is a team made up of young performers.
The program opens with "Dance, Sanjo (Ipchum)." The original piece "Yuyeong" flows, followed by "Molyi," in which percussion comes to the front, and then moves on to "Yeonhwa," which weaves together folk songs of the Namdo region.
Foreign audience members at the National Gugak Center's "Saturday Masterpieces" performances numbered 2,185 from January through July this year, 33.2 percent of the total. In 2021 the figure was 8.9 percent. Last year it hit a high of 36.34 percent. The number of foreigners taking part in hands-on sessions with gugak instruments reached 1,979 through July this year, and adding the 380 who applied for August puts it past last year's full-year record of 2,082.
BTS built a 360-degree pavilion modeled on Gyeonghoeru for their performance at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. They laid a taegeuk pattern on the floor and formed a ganggangsullae circle with LED ribbons. Seodo Band is releasing its first full-length album, "One," nine years after forming. It reworked the story of the pansori "Chunhyangga" as pop, and is preparing an 800-seat solo concert at Yonsei University's Centennial Hall.
It is not an easy current, of course. The hands that preserve the original form and the hands that change the stage do not always look in the same direction. The more often reinterpretation happens, the greater the responsibility to trace back what the original melody was.
By the Korea Cultural Heritage Foundation's count, first-half sales this year for the cultural product brand "K-Heritage" topped 9 billion won. It is a sign that tradition has entered the market, and a sign that there is that much more to be careful about.
The opening stage on the 21st and the Daejeon Small Hall on the 27th sit six days apart. At both, taking part begins with sitting in the audience.
