Performing Transnational Encounters: Musical Theatre in South Korea

Photo by Robin Kim (c)Show Incorporated

Dr. Hyewon Kim, Postdoctoral Fellow, Nam Center for Korean Studies, University of Michigan

Wednesday, February 20, 2019
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Charles E. Young Research Library
Presentation Room (Rm 11348)
UCLA

How does musical theatre cross borders? This talk attempts to evaluate how the fields of Western and South Korean musical theater have merged in the age of transnationalism, in which musical productions cross borders and cultural contact often transpires at the confluence of the two worlds. Ideally, the structure of Western musical theater would seamlessly transition into the theatrical realm of South Korea, where hybridity is nurtured and performed. But the encounter has not been seamless: it has been a site of contestation, negotiation, and reinvention, complicated by cultural policies and politics. Within this space of becoming, musical productions are regarded as works-in-progress, as the attendant emergent behaviors that shape them are never identical; they generate unexpected textures and forms, through which local performers breathe life into the Western super-structure of musical theater. The talk approaches the encounter in the process of becoming, and tries to stress the important contribution that such space in the border-crossing of musical theater can make to transnational theater studies.

Dr. Hyewon Kim is a NCKS Postdoctoral Fellow and lecturer at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her book titled South Korean Musical Theatre: Transnational Encounters is under contract with Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2020. Her research appears in numerous peer-reviewed academic journals, and has been awarded an Outstanding Article Award (2016, 2018) from Yonsei University, and a Scholar of Excellence (2017) from the Ministry of Education.

Hyung-WookKim
koreanstudies@international.ucla.edu

Sponsor(s): Center for Korean Studies, Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA