New P'ansori in Twenty-first-century Korea: Creative Dialectics of Tradition and Modernity

Nearly a century has passed since the first new p'ansori piece The Song of Ch'oe Pyong-du was performed at the turn of the twentieth century. While traditional p'ansori, a form of folk musical drama, came to symbolize the cultural and artistic heritage of the Korean nation, new p'ansori, in new millennium, aspires to be a cultural expression that is relevant to the contemporary conditions of everyday life while retaining or even restoring what is considered to be the quintessential p'ansori aesthetics. This article explores the ways in which new p'ansori combines various elements of tradition and modernity in its text, music, and performance style, which, in turn, lead to the polemics of p'ansori aesthetics and the authenticity debate.