Introducing Korea Through Art & Folktales

Details: Thursday, June 04 , 2009 | 3:12 PM

Event Link: Jin Young Choi, professor of American literature (emeritus) at Jungang University and the University of North Carolina, began the program with folktales. Professor Choi spoke to the educators about the four recurring animal characters in Korean folktales—the dragon, tiger, turtle and phoenix—as well as how common folktale plots reflect the high value that Koreans place on filial piety. She also noted that Korean folktales are almost entirely unique among the folktale traditions of the world for the fact that they contain no witches, or malign, magical female figures. <div>Grace Park, a painter and calligrapher from Potomac, Maryland, and one of the illustrators of Introducing Korea Through Art & Folktales, led a hands-on workshop where teachers learned to make the four basic brushstrokes used in traditional Korean calligraphy before moving on to paint bamboo, orchids, dragonflies and their own names in hangul. </div>
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Custom HTML field 3 title: <img style="margin: 0 5px 0 0; vertical-align: bottom;" src="images/icons/KoreanStudies/Adobe_PDF_Icon2.png" alt="Adobe PDF Icon" height="16" width="16" /><a style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank" class="wf_file" href="doc_download/711-introducing-korea-through-art-folktales">Introducing Korea Through Art and Folktales</a>

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The 2009 Spring conference brought thirty-four K-12 instructors together for a day of lesson plan instruction based on Korean art and folktales. The first session was led by Jin Young Choi who spoke to the recurring theme of filial piety in Korean folktales as well as the symbolic ties of the dragon, tiger, turtle and phoenix within society. Participants were then introduced to the four basic brush styles of Korean calligraphy by painter Grace Park. Participants were then given the chance to create their own renditions of common Korean themes including bamboos, orchids and dragonflies. Towards the end of the session, the teachers were educated on the the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibit Art of the Korean Renaissance, 1400-1600 by curator Grace Park. Each instructor was given a copy of the instruction lesson plan guidebook Introducing Korea Through Art and Folktales which was co-authored by Cathy Spagnoli and Anne Drillick.