Abstract
By examining Nanta, the first South Korean nonverbal performance, this chapter shows how the strategic fusion of pan-Asian traditional cultural elements and the reactions it elicits from Asian audiences reflect the producer’s vision of a globalized, transnational spectacle. Through an analysis of the play’s representational style and performance devices, the chapter argues that, whereas the theme of the transnational perpetuated in The Last Empress is contradictorily based on an exclusivist, nationalistically isolationist rationale, Nanta emphasizes inviting qualities that effectively accommodate audiences beyond the national borders. The chapter also questions whether the pan-Asian communications in the performance arose from South Korea’s national desire to function as an Asian cultural center under the gaze of Broadway (itself one of the symbols of global cultural hegemony).
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Notes
Sŭng-hwan Song, Segyerŭl nantahan namja: munhwa CEO, Song Sŭng-hwan (A Man Who Smacked the World: Sŭng-hwan Song, the Culture CEO) (Seoul: Bookian, 2003).
Won-dam Paek, Dongasia ŭi munhwa sŏnt’aek, hallyu (East Asia’s Choice, the Korean Wave) (Seoul: Pentagram, 2005).
Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Press Release, 25 September 2003 (Seoul: Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2003). The Won is the basic unit of currency in South Korea. USDi was roughly valued at KRW800 before the financial crisis in 1997; since mid-1998, the exchange rate has been about KRW1,190 to the dollar. Quoted in Doobo Shim, “Hybridity and the Rise of Korean Popular Culture in Asia,” Media, Culture & Society 28, no. 1 (2006), 35.
See Hyun Mee Kim, Globŏl sidae ŭi munhwa bŏnyŏk (Cultural Translation in a Global Era) (Seoul: Tto hana ŭi munhwa, 2005);
Soo-yi Kim, Hallyu wa 21seki munhwa bijŏn (Hallyu and the Cultural Vision of the 21st Century) (Seoul: Ch’ŏngdongkŏwul Publishing, 2006);
Yun-hwan Shin and Han-wu Lee, Dongasia ŭi hallyu (East Asia’s Hallyu) (Yongin: Jŏnyaewon, 2006);
and Sang-ch’ŏl Yu, Hallyu DNA ŭi bimil (The Secrets of Hallyu DNA) (Seoul: I treebook, 2005).
Hero’s 2009 premiere was sponsored by the City of Seoul, the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, the CJ Culture Foundation, Kukmin Bank, Kia, Fursys, and the Korea Expressway Corporation. See Hong-sam Sŏ, Mudaeüi tansaeng (The Birth of Staging) (Seoul: Miraeŭi ch’ang, 2013), 322–25.
Man-kyu Park, Hankuk musicalsa (The History of Korean Musicals Since 1941) (Seoul: Hanul Books, 2011), 754–66.
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© 2015 Hyunjung Lee
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Lee, H. (2015). Mediating the National-Regional-Global Triad: Nanta and Nonverbal Performance. In: Performing the Nation in Global Korea: Transnational Theatre. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137453587_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137453587_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49771-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-45358-7
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