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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2014
Because South Korea's national sovereignty is a matter of cultural production, Seoul boasts an energetic programme of world-class performances that educate both foreigners and Koreans about the nation's struggle to assert its subjectivity throughout centuries of invasion, colonization and displacement. Three musicals re-present episodes from Korea's mythical past in ways that demonstrate a ‘primordial’ uniqueness of Korean global presence. The Celestial Clock addresses a Korean audience, unfolding outdoors against the backdrop of Gyeonghuigung Palace. Miso: The Original Korean Musical – Love Songs from Chunhyang, a showcase for traditional performing arts, uses pantomime and subtitles to guide an international audience through a popular legend; and Miso II: Land of the Gods stages Korean mythical history in breathtaking spectacle. The musicals, by arguing for the ‘always already’ global viability of Korean national sovereignty, also work to destabilize current ‘mythologies’ of what it means for a state to achieve ‘global’ status.
2 Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, ‘Confusing Pleasures’, in Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 203–48, here p. 203Google Scholar.
3 See Sivigliano's, Martadiscussion of auto-exotification in ‘Evita: The Globalization of a National Myth’, Latin American Perspectives, 24, 6 (November 1997), pp. 156–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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10 Kim Nam Chae, interview with Claire Maria Chambers, translated by Joanne Ku, 14 June 2013.
11 This summary is compiled from my attendance of the performance, reading the Korean script with the assistance of Joanne Ku, and the performance programme, which provided a synopsis in English.
12 Performance programme, ‘Musical the Celestial Watch, 고궁뮤지글 찬상시계’, printed by Museum Play theatre company, unnumbered pages.
13 Cummings, Bruce, ‘The Interests, 1860–1904’, in Cummings, Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2005), pp. 86–138Google Scholar.
14 I believe that Chae is referencing an excerpt from The Analects of Confucius: ‘A ruler who governs his state by virtue is like the north polar star, which remains in its place while all the other stars revolve around it.’ Fisher, Mary Pat and Bailey, Lee W., eds., An Anthology of Living Religions (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2008), p. 143Google Scholar.
15 Kim Nam Chae, The Celestial Watch, trans. Joanne Ku, unpublished playscript. Courtesy of Kim Nam Chae and History Play Theatre Company.
16 As this article goes to press, the Chongdong Theatre opens its 2014 production, ‘MISO: Baebijang-jeong’, based on a late Joseon-era satirical novel.
17 Seoul.go.kr, ‘Hallyu Style: Miso’, at http://english.seoul.go.kr/cav/ena/hallyu_view.php?idx=8118&, accessed 29 November 2013.
18 Jeongim Choi, ‘Production Goals’, programme for Miso II: Silla, Land of the Gods, printed by the Chongdong Theatre, p. 6.
19 Ibid., p. 38.
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21 For a provocative approach to this history that challenges the dominant narrative see Sarah Soh, C., The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009).Google Scholar
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26 Miso II programme book, p. 22.
27 Robert Koehler, ‘Reliving Silla's Greatness with Miso II’, Seoul Magazine, 12 February 2013, at http://magazine.seoulselection.com/2013/02/12/reliving-sillas-greatness-with-miso-ii, accessed 27 November 2013.
28 The area is so rich with artefacts that farmers and townspeople are afraid to dig because the probable discovery of a valuable artefact would interrupt work and life and end up costing the landowner millions of won. See Oppenheimer, Robert, Kyǒngju Things: Assembling Place (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011)Google Scholar.
29 UNESCO, http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/736, accessed 29 November 2013.
30 Sung, Ak Ju, Light of a Century: Seokguram Stone Grotto (Seoul: Dongguk University Press, 2009) pp. 105–9Google Scholar (성낙주, 석굴암 백년의 빛: 사진으로 읽는 수난과 영광의 한 세기 (서울: 동국대학교출판부, 2009)). Many thanks to Cho Yu Jung, who assisted me in reading this text.
31 Anderson, p. 36.