Detective Oh Byeong-ho investigates a murder at a local brewery and uncovers the secret history of violence, and tragedy, between the communist guerrillas and right-wing militias that fought in the area during the Korean War.
Traditional Korean folk music repertoire on the changgo (hourglass drum) Performance by Minji Kim 2009 MCST Korean Traditional Artist-in-Residence with introduction and commentary by Ju-Yong Ha Composer and Ethnomusicologist, CUNY
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.
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
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The 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
Shown 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
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.
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.
Lock Making in Korean Drama
Gallery 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
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...)
Upcoming Exhibition.
The 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. 
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