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Yeon Jae-ho from the National Orchestra of Korea gives instruction on how to play janggu, an hourglass-shaped drum. (National Theater of Korea) |
The National Theater of Korea is to open the second season of its Let’s Gugak program through its official YouTube channel, introducing the traditional performing arts of Korea to foreign audiences.
The state-run theater has been running the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Academy, educating foreigners in Korea who are interested in traditional Korean culture. But to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person classes have been canceled. Instead, it has been running an online education program under the name Let’s Gugak since January.
The second part of the program will be released from Aug. 12. Like the first series, the upcoming season will feature videos on three traditional Korean art genres: samulnori, a new school of traditional Korean music, pansori, traditional Korean narrative singing, and Korean dance.
A total of nine clips are set for release, with a clip to be released every Thursday.
Yeon Jae-ho, a member of the National Orchestra of Korea, will teach the basics of samulnori, while singer Moon Soo-hyun will teach pansori, joined by students from the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Academy. Moon will teach “Sarangga” (“Love Song”) from the celebrated pansori work “Chunhyangga.” Dancer Yu Hwa-jung will teach traditional Korean dance movements.
English, Chinese and Japanese subtitles are provided for the clips, along with practice videos that allow viewers to rehearse dance movements and vocalization.
By Im Eun-byel (
silverstar@heraldcorp.com)
