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Masks of Night: Faces from Traditional Korean Dance-Dramas
maskofnightUpcoming Exhibition.
March 4May 28, 2010

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 4, 2010
, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
click here to RSVP

Free and Open to the Public

The Korea Society Gallery
950 Third Avenue @ 57th Street, 8th Floor 
(Building entrance on SW corner of Third Avenue and 57th Street)

Koreans have expressed their fears and passions through masked dance for hundreds of years. The practice may have begun in prehistoric times with shamans who aimed to ward off malevolent spirits by donning frightening masks.

Over the centuries, masked dance evolved from shamanic ritual to royal-court entertainment. By the middle of the eighteenth century, masked dance had evolved again into a distinctive form of popular entertainment that featured dance, song and dialogue, with different styles developing in different regions of Korea. During this period, masked dance-dramas were staged outdoors at court and in the countryside as all-night, bonfire-lit events. The performances took place throughout the planting and harvesting seasons, to promote fertility, and on the eve of the lunar new year and Buddha's birthday, to ensure good fortune. The dramas were also performed to welcome foreign envoys. Audiences included both nobles and commoners. Dancers began by donning the masks—made from gourds, wood, bark, animal fur, cloth, and paper-mâché—and, like their shamanic predecessors, invoking the deities. What followed was a riotous series of satirical sketches featuring characterizations of wayward monks, pompous playboys, titillating love triangles, and farcical noblemen. In this way, the dances also functioned as a catharsis for the community, releasing through laughter the pent-up tensions created by the Chosŏn Dynasty's (1392-1910) rigid moral and social strictures. The performance ended at dawn when the masks were tossed into the bonfire, symbolically expelling misfortune. As a result of this tradition, intact dance-drama masks from the period are exceedingly rare.

This exhibition features traditional dance-drama masks carved by four master artisans in the 1970s and '80s. The masks are carved in four regional types: Pongsan (Hwanghae province in the northwest of North Korea), Songp’a (Seoul), Yangju (north of Seoul), and Tongnae (south of Kyŏngsang province). The exhibition also features reproductions from an original set of Hahoe (Andong) exorcism masks from North Kyŏngsang province. Each regional mask style has been designated as an Important Intangible Cultural Property of Korea by the Korean government. The artisans who crafted the masks in this exhibit have been designated as Living Cultural Treasures. Unfortunately, the carving of traditional masks has become a dying skill. Of the four artisans featured here, only one survives.

All of the masks in this exhibition are on loan from the collection of Theresa Ki-ja Kim.


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Korean Masked Dance-Drama: Enchanted Fertility Rite and Social Satire
Join us as Theresa Ki-ja Kim, professor emeritus of theater arts at SUNY Stony Brook, discusses how Korea's unique tradition of masked dance-dramas masterfully blended fertility rite, social satire, and popular entertainment. Held in conjunction with the exhibition, Masks of Night: Faces from Traditional Korean Dance-Dramas, Kim's gallery talk will introduce the masked dance-drama, a form of performance that included songs, dances, and dialogues that aimed to satirize the local nobility (yangban) and promote fertility. Her talk will also examine how masked dance-dramas performed at the Korean royal court and throughout the countryside evolved from ancient shamanic rituals into a form of popular theater that helped release the pent-up social frustration generated by the rigid Confucian norms of the Chosŏn kingdom (1392-1910).

Korean Masked Dance-Drama: Enchanted Fertility Rite and Social Satire

Gallery Talk

with

Theresa Ki-ja Kim
Professor Emeritus, Department of Theatre Arts, SUNY Stony Brook, New York

Thursday, April 1, 2010

6:00 PM-6:30 PM ♦ Registration and Reception
6:30 PM-8:00 PM ♦ Presentation and Q&A

The Korea Society
950 Third Avenue @ 57th Street, 8th Floor
(Building entrance on SW corner of Third Avenue and 57th Street)

$10 for members and students; $20 for nonmembers (Walk-in registration will incur an additional charge of $5)
click here to Buy Tickets
For more information or to register for the program, please contact Heewon Kim at 212-759-7525 ext 355 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

About the Speaker
Read more...  [Korean Masked Dance-Drama: Enchanted Fertility Rite and Social Satire]
 
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Missionary Photography Exhibition Catalog
2009_10_22_donald-clarkThe Korea Society presents the print catalog for Missionary Photography in Korea: Encountering the West through Christianity, a 2009 exhibition of historical photographs taken by early Christian missionaries to Korea.

Featuring more than 70 black and white photographs taken between 1887 and 1938, Missionary Photography in Korea: Encountering the West through Christianity, captures a transformative era, when contact with Western missionaries was creating new religious identities and stoking cultural clashes that would come to shape modern Korea. Indeed, it provides a glimpse of dramatic social changes in progress that absorb the reader in their abundance of character and detail. Each photograph is accompanied by an extensive caption on the facing page that puts the scene in historical and cultural context.

More than deeply engaging collection of rare photographs, Missionary Photography in Korea: Encountering the West through Christianity is also a solid reference book on the subject of early missionary activities in Korea, and includes essays by leading scholars and experts on Christianity in Korea such as Donald N. Clark, Hyaeweol Choi, Chang Uk Byun, Don Baker and Louanne Norris Smith.

Missionary Photography in Korea: Encountering the West through Christianity was edited by Donald N. Clark, professor of history and the director of International Studies Program at Trinity University. Clark is the author of Culture and Customs of Korea and Living Dangerously in Korea: The Western Experience, 1900-1950. The son of missionaries, he was a Peace Corps volunteer, a Social Science Research Council fellow, and a Fulbright scholar. His research focuses on Korea, where he has spent much of his life.

Price:
Current members: $30
Non-members $40
Shipping: $6.25
(Availability is limited.)

Product Details

Hardcover: 184 pages

Publisher: Seoul Selection (October 2009)
Language: English

ISBN-10: 8991913592
ISBN-13: 9788991913592

Product Dimensions:
12 x 9.5 x 1.5

Shipping Weight:
2.5 pounds
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If you have any questions, please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call Heewon Kim at (212) 759-7525, ext. 355.
Hardcover Exhibition Catalog, Missionary Photography in Korea
Exhibition Catalog $40.00
 
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Talismans of Protection from Chosŏn Korea: Antique Locks, Latches and Key Charms
peony_patterned_lock-smallShown for the first time in the United States, the collection features a rare collection of locks, latches and key charms, from the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392-1910), beautifully designed metal and wood objects executed in myriad shapes.

Talismans of Protection from Choson Korea: Antique Locks, Latches and Key Charms

October 8, 2009-January 29, 2010


Gallery Hours: Monday through Friday: 10:00 AM-5:00 PM

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 8, 2009, 6:00 PM-8:30 PM

The Korea Society Gallery
950 Third Avenue @ 57th Street, 8th Floor
(Building entrance on SW corner of Third Avenue and 57th Street)

Free and open to the public

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This exhibition features a rare collection of locks, latches and key charms, from the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392-1910). The items reveal the richly symbolic and exquisitely decorative dimensions of traditional Korean aesthetic and craft traditions. On loan from the Lock Museum in Seoul and shown for the first time in the United States, the collection includes beautifully designed metal and wood objects executed in myriad shapes: dragons, turtles, butterflies, fish, bats and swallows. Although these objects served functional purposes in everyday life, such as securing gates and protecting the contents of chests and other kinds of furniture, the beauty of their design underscores the primarily symbolic nature of the protection they afforded. Traditionally, Koreans believed that locks and latches fashioned in the shape of talismanic animals could invoke the power of these animals both to ensure the protection of their property and to bestow the blessings of wealth, health, fecundity and happiness. As an accompaniment to the locks and latches, key charms evolved from functional key holders into exquisitely decorated personal accessories passed from mothers to daughters as a symbol of the transfer of responsibility for ensuring the good management of household affairs.
The exhibition will be on view in New York City at two venues: The Korea Society (October 8, 2009-January 29, 2010) and Flushing Town Hall (October 10, 2009-January 31, 2010)
On loan from the Lock Museum in Seoul, and shown for the first time in the US. The exhibition was organized by The Korea Society and is co-presented with Flushing Town Hall.
 
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Lock Making in Korean Drama
Novelist Adrienne Leslie discussed lock making and the revealing and nuanced use of locks  in the Korean historical drama, Il Ji-Mae:The Phantom Thief. Held in conjunction with The Korea Society Gallery’s latest exhibit, Talismans of Protection from Chosŏn Korea: Antique Locks, Latches and Key Charms, Leslie discussion touched on how the drama uses special effects reminiscent of CSI to take viewers inside the inner workings of ancient Korean locks, and by extension, inside the inner workings of  Chosŏn society.


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Lock Making in Korean Drama

leslie_adrienneGallery Talk

with

Adrienne Leslie
Novelist

Thursday, November 5, 2009
6:00 PM-6:30 PM ♦ Registration and Reception
6:30 PM-8:00 PM ♦ Presentation and Q&A

The Korea Society
950 Third Avenue @ 57th Street, 8th Floor
(Building entrance on SW corner of Third Avenue and 57th Street)

$10 for members and students; $20 for nonmembers (Walk-in registration will incur an additional charge of $5)
For more information or to register for the program, please contact Heewon Kim at 212-759-7525 ext 355 or email

About the Speaker

Read more...  [Lock Making in Korean Drama]
 
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Visiting Hours
Mondays - Friday
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
The Korea Society
950 Third Ave, 8th Flr,
New York, NY 10022
(212) 759-7525
Fax: (212) 759-7530
The Korea Society is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) organization that is dedicated solely to the promotion of greater awareness, understanding and cooperation between the people of the United States and Korea. (more...)