World Stage Design 2009

Korean Theatre Artist Association and OISTAT have launched a new website for World Stage Design 2009. Check out the website for their gallery of world theatre design and a competition for scenographers/theatre designers to be presented online and at Seoul World Stage Design exhibition in 2009.

South Korea's Long-Term Cultural Strategy

South Korean Culture Minister Yu In-chon said he will formulate a long-term overseas promotional strategy to boost the global popularity of Korean culture. Long-term planning invariably means a bigger budget in promoting Korean culture. Yu said the plan is on the drawing board, adding that the action program will eventuate early next year.

Yu mentioned the on-going Korea Festival in Brussels, Belgium as a good example of promoting Korean culture overseas. The minister of culture, sports and tourism said the event is gaining huge popularity in Brussels because it shows the essence of Korean culture ― not only traditional culture, but also food, fashion and other things. He added preparations took two years. A similar event will be held in Petit Palais, Paris in 2010.

For the Americas and Europe in which Korean culture is relatively unknown, the government will take a more aggressive promotion strategy. It will expand multi-cultural exchange programs with East Asian countries through ASEAN to introduce diverse Asian cultures. He said the comprehensive Korean cultural promotion policies would be completed by 2012. Read the full Korea Times article here.

Re-Constructing Asian-ness(es) in the Global Age

The International Federation for Theatre Research is currently holding their annual conference at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea. "The IFTR conference aims to examine, learn, and bring to discussion how different theatre traditions of East and West come to play for, against, amongst each other to transform and re-create their respective new ones, ultimately in order to enrich and reinforce Theatre as an important cultural asset of the global community." Internationalist Eyad Houssami is there presenting his paper on contemporary theatre from Beirut. See the website here.

Other topics of discussion include:
1. Constructions and Imaginative Representation of Asian-ness in World Performance.
2. Religion and Theatre: influences of religions in Asia such as Shamanism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, etc. on theatre.
3. New media and Theatre: impact and uses of new technology on Asian traditional theatre and theatre education.
4. Adaptation and Appropriation: local Asian adaptations of international theatre influences including Shakespeare, Brecht, Chekhov, etc.
5. Cultural Translation: ideologies of the West such as modernism, Marxism, feminism, etc. as translated and historically practiced in Asian cultural contexts and their representations in theatre.
6. Asian and Transnational Women’s Issues in Performance.
7. Spatial Issues in Performance.
8. Corporeality and Representation in Performance.
9. Festivals as sites of performance.
10. Concepts of Asian-ness in Cyberspace.