Last Friday night I went to a performance at the Sokcho Cultural Center of some traditional, and some modern/traditional performances of music and dance. It was an excellent performance, and although the crowd (mostly high school girls on a homework assignment) was a bit noisy, they compensated by cranking the volume up. The final farmer's dance left my ears ringing.

I had been hoping to see a pansori performance--my wife said she thought there would be some, but the high school student next to me told me that there are so few pansori masters (it requires years of painful vocal training) that towns like ours almost never have such performances. It's a shame that I have spent over four years here and still have yet to see a live pansori performance.

Anyway, without further ado, here are some excerpts from the evening. My digital camera battery was about to die, hence none of the clips are complete, but should give the uninitiated an idea of these genres of Korean traditional performing arts.

This first clip is of a drum performance.





The next one is by the group 고구려예슬단




Korean Exorcism Dance
살풀이 - 안무 - 이현정 신천무용단





These last ones are of the Farmer's Dance, which is perfaromed at many festivals in Korea. If you're going to pick just one clip, the last one is the most spectacular.