Korean Pansori comes to Wimbledon

We sat down with Meenah Kim from Seoul WOW Book Festival to discuss the performance and the impact of Korean culture in the UK. The first question is simple: what actually is Pansori?

“Pansori is a traditional Korean performance, which has satire and really emotional feelings.” A single vocalist performs a story, voicing all the characters in the narrative. Pansori has a long history in Korea, originating in the seventeenth century in the lower classes and eventually finding popularity with the royal family and historically famous artists. However, for Meenah, Pansori’s true value is in its timelessness.

This sense of enduring tradition of Pansori is in part because of the way it expresses genuine emotions. It is a performance where audience participation is encouraged and where “we share lots of feelings we have in our lives… when the audiences are watching, they cry together and they can actually get involved in the performance.”

This emotional expression appeals to Gen Z in particular, who Meenah suggests are more open in their feelings. There is an interest in reviving traditional Korean art forms for younger audiences, and she references K Pop Demon Hunters, an acclaimed American musical film which draws on Korean mythology and demonology.

Pansori can be enjoyed across different time periods and generations, but it also crosses cultural boundaries. The dramatic action of the Pansori, which follows a narrative structure of conflict, climax and resolution, has parallels with Shakespeare’s plays. The production is an adaptation of Jeanette Winterson’s The Gap of Time, which is itself a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, reimagined through Pansori. This collaboration of East with West, and of tradition and modernity, speaks to Pansori and its contemporary revival.

The performer, Eunhye Jung, one of Korea’s most acclaimed Pansori artists, has adapted Winterson’s novel for this production herself. Translating a modern English novel into a traditional Korean performance poses challenges, but also opportunities. Her performance is experimental, using a pianist instead of a drummer and ambient sounds to increase emotional tension. Korean and British audiences alike will be surprised by the performance, which is more modern and accessible than a traditional Pansori and unlike the written narratives that we are used to in the UK.

Meenah hopes the production will create new perspectives on Korean culture in the UK: “As Korean culture is growing in London and the UK, this is our chance to share some more about deeply rooted culture.”

She recognises the soaring popularity of Korean culture in the West, such as K-pop and social media trends such as Mukbangs. She believes this is in part due to “aesthetics” and it being “trendy”. This is not necessarily a bad thing: “I think the industry was building up for this international phenomenon for ages. I think they are starting to get recognition for their hard work.”

However, Seoul WOW Book Festival does not want to stop there. “We’d like to show the other side of Korea… we don’t want to stop with only the K pop and the Korean food, but are trying to dig deeper than the surface level and introduce to international people the full range of what we have to offer. Pansori is not very usual or common form of art that we are presenting. We want to make Pansori very cool. And I think it’s a good time for us to experiment with the international stage.”

For London’s Korean community, especially in New Malden – often called “Koreantown” – this performance carries special resonance. Meenah, who has lived there for eight years, describes how many Koreans abroad feel an even stronger connection to their heritage: “They are trying to keep the identity of Korea [through] traditional costume or authentic Korean food.” This performance will speak to the “older generation who remember the old Pansori performance, and then a younger generation can learn more about traditional Pansori history and their cultural background.”

Wimbledon BookFest has a partnership with Seoul WOW Book Festival, which is an opportunity for dialogue and the global celebration of Korean art and culture. “We both try to encourage young people to read a book and introduce them to interesting art, culture and literacy. In Wimbledon, Korean cultures keep growing and the BookFest attracts an international audience. I think we have a lot to exchange, and I really see a long-term collaboration.”

This is an opportunity to bridge cultures and communities: “Storytelling is for sharing the emotion, whether it’s positive or negative. If you think about all those things going on around the world, like we hear the sad news and rarely happy news these days, some of the matter feels too big or too small. But as we are in the same place and watching the performance and feeling these emotions, that’s comforting people. So no matter what language you’re speaking, art resonates. It helps people feel that we are aligned together.”

Korean Pansori: A Winter’s Tale is being performed Rutherford Theatre at Wimbledon High School on Friday 24^th October. You can get your tickets here.

By Samara Watts