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Introduction
The Korean Wave (hallyu) has become an overarching narrative that frames much of our understanding of contemporary Korea, as the continually growing literature on the Korean Wave indicates (see Howard 2006; Chua and Iwabuchi 2008; Kim, Youna 2013; Choi and Maliangkay 2015 etc.).1 This narrative has become so powerful that it is applied to understand ever-wider areas of Korean culture, expanding from analysis of K-pop, K-drama or K-film into K-fashion, K-design and so on, as well as into traditional Korean culture. A clear example of this is the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s “HanStyle” policy from 2007 to 2011 (MCST 2007), which aimed to promote the six hans of Korean traditional culture: Korean writing (hangŭl), Korean food (hanshik), Korean clothing (hanbok), Korean houses (hanok), Korean paper (hanji) and Korean music (han’guk ŭmak). This is by no means limited to top-down policy decisions: artists of traditional Korean music (kugak) also work within this narrative, both by choice and by necessity, as they attempt to attract audiences used to consuming the popular culture which makes up the Korean Wave. Contrary to perceptions of young kugak artists as being unable and unwilling to participate in contemporary popular culture (described for example in So Inhwa 2015:31–32), in this paper I will focus in detail on the singing–storytelling genre p’ansori to explore the pressures its performers face in contemporary society, and describe the strategies these performers use to engage with audiences predominantly familiar with the popular culture of the Korean Wave.
Why Popularise?
While government policies have been very active in promoting kugak as part of the Korean Wave both at home and abroad, Sutton describes the dilemma which emerges from this:
Official discourse on the arts and government-supported cultural policy in Korea has strongly favored the forms with the least evident influence from other countries and cultures, but the vast majority of Korean people today and in the recent past have felt remarkably little appreciation for many of these forms. While most would not deny that these forms are indeed part of their cultural heritage as Koreans and are clearly and unambiguously identifiable as “Korean arts,” they also feel culturally...