Have you ever heard of the major of Traditional Arts? It’s not something we experience often. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Actually seeing it once is better than thinking and searching about it thousands of times. We sometimes wonder how much we would change later on when we’re about to graduate. Most of you will be in at the point of becoming a graduate at some time. This concert is a concert from the students in the Department of Traditional Arts.

Traditional art, I’ll tell you about it!
Most people will have heard a lot about performing arts, creative arts, and traditional arts, but although we hear about it, we see less of it. Traditional Art consists of plays, music, puppet plays, Pansori, and yard plays. Our Traditional Arts is not well known to the audience yet. Traditional Arts is something that many people do not have a lot of interest in these days, but it is definitely an important part of our lives. If we become more interest in traditional arts, wouldn’t the status of traditional arts grow too? Chung-Ang University’s Department of Traditional Arts is divided into two majors, performing arts and percussive arts. Their goal is to develop traditional arts, not yet familiar to the audience, worldwide as a professional within the traditional arts environment.

People getting to know about Traditional art
Recently, perhaps our interest in tradition has been decreasing, and more attention is needed. One gets more interested in something when they actually experience it. The same might be said for traditional arts, it is hard to get close to it, unless we actually search for it by ourselves. These days there are a lot of foreigners who are studying Traditional Arts. In the Korean National Folk Museum, there are lots of traditional art classes for foreigners. They teach the Samulnori mask dance beat by beat and the students follow the teachers step by step. Learning each step, people start to fall in love with the charm of traditional arts. Since 2009, The Korean National Folk Museum has opened traditional art classes to promote Korean tradition and culture. If we get to know about traditional arts, CAH believes that we will enjoy it more.

Students learned underneath the traditional artist, Kim Seong-nyeo.
In spring, new sprouts come out as if they welcome the New Year and spring welcomes us with gladness. The ‘Spring Concert’ by the Department of Traditional Arts was directed by Professor Kim Seong-nyeo. When students first enter university, they are like little buds sprouting in spring. However when time passes and the buds grow, students pass their freshmen year head to their sophomore year, junior year and finally into their final stages as a senior, like a flower in full bloom. The director of this concert, Professor Kim is a Korean Actress, professor and a classical musician. Her first play was in 1976 and later on, she has participated in many more plays as an actress becoming a ‘legend’ of Korean traditional arts.

The slight wind and delightful music, “Spring, let’s dance.”
“Spring, let’s dance” was performed by students from Korean traditional music and vocal music. There are 4 parts in the music and it is all related to dance. “Spring, let’s dance” has a meaning to dance and welcome the spring. The first performance is the Ji-jeon dance that came from Jin-Do, Jeollanam-Do. Ji-jeon is paper money; the dance uses ji-jeon. The dance or exorcism means to solve the unsolved grudge in this land, and to wish for the dead spirit to go to a better world. This includes pansori, folk song and vocal music parts. The second performance is mainly a folk song. The first song, the song of catching anchovy is a folk song from Jeju Island; the song to release the tiredness of the fisherman and increase the sense of unity. The second song, Gol-pae taryeong sings golpae, a Korean traditional play. You can feel the cheerful beat and the country-ish composition making us joyous. This includes the Korean traditional instrument, gayageum. The third performance is the jindobuk (buk:drum) dance, which is noted as the 18th Intangible cultural properties. If one hits the drum, its called a drum dance but when many people hit it, it is called a Buk play. By fastening the drum to your shoulders and expressing different beats and tricks using the sticks, is the way to play the drum. The last performance is “A dream of a puppet.” “A dream of a puppet” is a re-made ballet of the original “puppet play (kkok du gak-si play). You could see simplicity and conciseness expressed by human as a “doll dance.”
The play was greater than expected. People often don’t watch traditional plays because it isn’t often shown everywhere. In order to watch such things, we have to search about it by ourselves. CAH believes that if there is a chance to watch it, there wouldn’t be any disappointment about it. While watching the play, there wasn’t a single moment that was bored. The amazing collaboration between music and acting allowed the audience to focus more on the performance. Like the title of the play “Spring, lets dance”, the performance was exciting and delightful.

After seeing the concert, CAH could get a better understanding about Traditional Arts. Traditional Arts which was firstly thought rare became more familiar. CAH could feel how much time the students have spent on preparing for this concert. Watching them heading a step closer to becoming better artists was a great experience. With frequent concerts, CAH believes that it could provide more chance for the audience to get familiar with Traditional Arts. Maybe one day, these students will be representing Korean Traditonal Arts on the global stage. CAH suggests we try and watch them while we can.

<Concert Information>
Location: Chung-Ang University Art center
Time: April 4th, 7:00 p.m