Encounters with Samulnori: the Cultural Politics of South Korea's Dynamic Percussion Genre
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Encounters with Samulnori: The Cultural Politics of South Korea's Dynamic Percussion Genre The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Lee, Katherine In-Young. 2012. Encounters with Samulnori: The Cultural Politics of South Korea's Dynamic Percussion Genre. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:10288955 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, WARNING: This file should NOT have been available for downloading from Harvard University’s DASH repository. © 2012 – Katherine In-Young Lee All rights reserved Professor Kay Kaufman Shelemay, advisor Katherine In-Young Lee ENCOUNTERS WITH SAMULNORI: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF SOUTH KOREA’S DYNAMIC PERCUSSION GENRE ABSTRACT This dissertation interrogates how diverse actors ascribe semantic, affective, and political meanings to instrumental music under changing historical circumstances and in different performance contexts. In what I call an “ethnographic reception study,” I employ historical and ethnographic methods to assess the ways in which the popular samulnori percussion genre from South Korea has been imbued with associations as divergent as a sonic symbol of Korea to narratives of resistance against the state. Through five chapters, I track some of the contested and multiple meanings as they interact, both in historical moments in South Korea and vis-à-vis transnational circulations that led to the genre’s transmission outside Korea. As a genre of percussion music that was first created in South Korea in 1978, samulnori has had a complex reception during three dramatic decades in modern Korean history— leading to life-changing encounters from its fans while also eliciting scorn from its detractors. As a dynamic musical genre that is now notated and largely nonverbal, samulnori has served as a user-friendly sonic canvas upon which identities and affinities have been easily grafted by non-Korean fans, leading to the development of amateur samulnori ensembles and musical communities around the world. By considering the ways in which the samulnori genre has been evaluated, interpreted, and iii practiced by different actors, I show how the genre’s complex reception exhibits a relational and imbricated set of meanings over time. Last, by considering the cultural politics of samulnori from diachronic and synchronic perspectives, I offer a working methodology for contemporary studies of music reception. iv CONTENTS List of Figures and Tables vi. Preface viii. Notes on Translation and Romanization x. Acknowledgments xi. Introduction: South Korea’s Sonic Boom 1 1. Space and the Big Bang 26 2. The Drumming of Dissent during South Korea’s Democratization 55 Movement 3. Inscribing Difference through Two Related Percussion Genres 91 4. Global Encounters with SamulNori 126 5. Transnational Samulnori and the Politics of Place 168 Epilogue 201 Appendix 1. Performances of Kugak at the Space Theater 207 (1977-1989) Appendix 2. SamulNori: “Tradition Meets the Present” 212 Appendix 3. “Reflections on SamulNori 1978-2008” 215 Bibliography 217 v FIGURES Figure 0.1 Dynamic Korea pamphlet 6 Figure 0.2 “Touch Korea” website screenshot 9 Figure 0.3 Kim Duk Soo, FIFA World Cup, 2002 11 Figure 1.1 The Space Theater (Konggan Sarang/공간사랑) sign 29 Figure 1.2 Figure 1.2. The small theater (sogŭkchang/소극장) in 2009. 31 Figure 1.3 Minsok akhoe Sinawi program, front, March 1, 1979 42 Figure 1.4 Five regional styles of p’ungmul 43 Figure 1.5 “Kŏllip p’ae p’ungmul,” SamulNori’s first solo performance at 45 the Space Theater Figure 1.6 Stone pagoda in the atrium of the Space Building 48 Figure 1.7 SamulNori quartet: Lee Kwang Soo, Kim Yong-bae, 50 Kim Duk Soo, and Choi Jong-sil. Space Theater, 1981 Figure 1.8 The SamulNori quartet performing p’an kut at the 52 Space Theater, 1981 Figure 2.1 A large-scale memorial protest held for Yi Sŏkkyu on 61 Kŏje island Figure 2.2 Imsil P’ilbong Nongak Preservation Society performs 64 p’ungmul Figure 2.3 Four main percussion instruments used in p’ungmul 66 Figure 2.4 Chapsaek characters in costume, Imsil P’ilbong performance 68 Figure 2.5 Kwanak Political Agitation School, pamphlet 72 Figure 2.6 “Basic Rhythms”—drum syllables rendered in han’gŭl. 78 Figure 2.7 Plain-clothes police and student demonstrators, Seoul, 1988 79 Figure 2.8 Soobeen Lee and students play at funerary altar for Yi Sŏkkyu 85 Figure 3.1 MIT’s Oori at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 95 Figure 3.2 Postcard, MFA for the Holidays, 2006 108 Figure 3.3 Hansori at Wellesley College, 1994 119 Figure 3.4 Oori Schedule, 2005 121 Figure 4.1 SamulNori on stage in Hamburg, West Germany 127 Figure 4.2 Suzanna Samstag and her children, 2008 132 Figure 4.3 Shinparam at Kyŏngbok Palace, Seoul, 2005 137 Figure 4.4 Shinparam on Arirang television, 2005 141 Figure 4.5 Swissamul at the World SamulNori Festival, Puyŏ 144 Figure 4.6 Hendrikje Lange on SBS television, 2012 151 Figure 4.7 Canto del Cielo at the World SamulNori Festival, Puyŏ 152 Figure 4.8 T’alch’um masks, Centro Cultural Coreano, Mexico City 154 Figure 4.9 Lee Jeong-woo [Yi Chŏng’u] teaching in Mexico, 2007 155 Figure 4.10 Samulnori notation on studio wall, Mexico City 157 Figure 4.11 Shinawi team from Japan, World SamulNori Festival, 2008 159 vi Figure 4.12 Shinawi at Tokyo’s Waseda University, 2007 162 Figure 4.13 Shinaweb’s blog 164 Figure 4.14 Descriptors of encounters with SamulNori/samulnori 165 Figure 5.1 The “founding fathers” of SamulNori, 2008 169 Figure 5.2 Poster images from the SamulNori competitions 173 Figure 5.3 Sign for the Chŏngnim site 176 Figure 5.4 Chŏngnim temple 177 Figure 5.5 Map of festival grounds 177 Figure 5.6 Kŏnkuk School team from Osaka, Japan 180 Figure 5.7 Kilnori at the opening event 183 Figure 5.8 First stanza of “Pinari” 186 Figure 5.9 Lee Kwang Soo performing the “Pinari” 188 Figure 5.10 Shinparam members with the author at the World 192 SamulNori Festival Figure 5.11 Mexican team in Aztec dress 194 Figure 5.12 Pyŏldalgŏri text and notation for English speakers 195 Figure 5.13 Russian transliteration of Pyŏldalgŏri text 197 Figure 5.14 The World SamulNori Team rehearsing “Yŏngnam Nongak” 198 TABLES Table 2.1 Six reasons for activists’ selection of p’ungmul 89 Table 3.1 Comparison of Oori and SamulNori texts 103 Table 3.2 Omissions and additions in the Oori text “About Pungmul” 106 Table 3.3 Substitutions made in the Oori text 110 Table 5.1 International samulnori teams represented at the World 170 SamulNori Festival Table 5.2 Pyŏldalgŏri drum syllables 196 vii PREFACE Although I had been to South Korea for three brief visits during my youth, my first extensive stay in the country was in the fall of 2001. After completing my Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, I received a fellowship from the Blakemore Foundation to pursue intensive language study at Yonsei University’s Korean Language Institute. I was eager for the opportunity to live overseas and to explore a culture that seemed both curiously familiar and foreign to me. I had the inauspicious fortune, however, of choosing to begin my journey on the morning of September 11, 2001, the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and on Flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. My flight, which was supposed to depart from Detroit at 8:54 that morning (ten minutes after the first hijacked plane was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center), was grounded by the FAA and all passengers were forced to deplane. On large-screen monitors at the airport I witnessed the unfolding of events that fateful morning, observing the collapse of the two towers and the Pentagon attack. After leaving Metro Airport and returning home, I spent the next several days glued to the television set in disbelief, unable to focus on anything but the coverage of the 9/11 attacks. I also underwent a period of uncertainty, questioning whether an overseas language program was a trivial pursuit when the world seemed to be falling to pieces in front of my eyes. Unable to reach the airlines to rebook my reservation, I wallowed in doubt for several days, couch-bound. What eventually brought me out of this state was my belief in the relevance of ethnomusicology. I came to understand that at the heart of my own encounters in ethnomusicology were lessons in cross- cultural exchange and understanding. With a renewed sense of purpose, I eventually traveled to Korea ten days after my originally scheduled departure date. I became aware that I was granted an viii extraordinary pass, and I wanted to take full advantage of it. Not having to worry about employment or rent, I immersed myself fully in Korea—the language, culture, music, and complex histories. I learned about Korea in a way that I could not glean from books and I also learned about the Korea and the families that my parents had left behind as graduate students, eager to embark on their own journeys in America. I went for one year and stayed for four. After graduating from the language institute in 2003, I began to work as the overseas coordinator for SamulNori Hanullim/Nanjang Cultures. It was during this year that I first became acquainted with the musicians and personalities who figure so prominently in my dissertation research. It was also the year when I began to hear, on a regular basis, the genre of samulnori—as performed by its master percussionists.