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Reconciling Nations and Citizenship: Meaning, Creativity, and the Performance of a North Korean Troupe in South Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

Sunhee Koo
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Abstract

Since 2000, a number of performing troupes have been established in South Korea, made up largely of musicians and dancers who were professionally trained in North Korea prior to their migration and presenting a range of music and dances related to both the North and South. Combining ethnographic data with performance analysis of one such troupe, the Pyŏngyang Minsok Yesultan, I show how the nation and the state intersect in the space of performing arts as the troupe's creative culture reflects the settlement experiences of North Koreans in the South. While the troupe's organization, membership, and performance culture delineate migrant adaptation and understanding of their new citizenship, the performance of these Koreans is a complex terrain in which the two Koreas converge and are contested as the performers enact a constant negotiation between “being” and “negating” North Korean-ness, expressing their cultural hybridity as emergent citizens of the South.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 75 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 387 - 409
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2016 

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