Join us as Theresa Ki-ja Kim, professor emeritus of theater arts at SUNY Stony Brook, discusses how Korea's unique tradition of masked dance-dramas masterfully blended fertility rite, social satire, and popular entertainment. Held in conjunction with the exhibition, Masks of Night: Faces from Traditional Korean Dance-Dramas, Kim's gallery talk will introduce the masked dance-drama, a form of performance that included songs, dances, and dialogues that aimed to satirize the local nobility (yangban) and promote fertility. Her talk will also examine how masked dance-dramas performed at the Korean royal court and throughout the countryside evolved from ancient shamanic rituals into a form of popular theater that helped release the pent-up social frustration generated by the rigid Confucian norms of the Chosŏn kingdom (1392-1910).

Gallery Talk with
Theresa Ki-ja Kim
Professor Emeritus, Department of Theatre Arts, SUNY Stony Brook, New York

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Theresa Ki-ja Kim is a professor emeritus of theatre arts at SUNY Stony Brook and a Fulbright Scholar of the shamanic origins of theater. Kim's collection of Korean theatrical masks, on display at Masks of Night: Faces from Traditional Korean Dance-Dramas, is a result of her personal associations with the masked dancers and shamans during years of researching, teaching, producing, and publishing in the fields of traditional Asian theater and shamanism. She holds a Ph.D. in performance studies from New York University.