Discuss the evolution of Korea's t'alch'um tradition

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

T'alch'um is an ancient Korean masked dance theatre, with roots in shamanistic ritual. The most popular form of Korean theatre, t'alch'um came to a crashing halt when the Japanese invaded Korea in 1910 and banned any form of performance that embodied Korean cultural identity. When Japan was defeated in 1945, there was a call to recover Korean cultural identity, and with it came the resurrection of t'alch'um. Through government preservation initiatives, university research, and a national festival, t'alch'um was seen again in the late 1950s for the first time in half a century. During the political repression of the 1970s, students used t'alch'um, updating the old peasant characters with factory workers and replacing the noblemen with political figures. Simultaneously, the experimental theatre movement in Korea found ways of interweaving t'alch'um elements into productions of Western classical plays. New dramas were written, incorporating ritual elements from t'alch'um. Today, Korean new wave theatre artists draw from various traditions, including t'alch'um, in productions such as Cookin'.