Clad in a beautiful, yellowish-green hanbok and her hair pulled back in a tight bun at the back of her neck, Kim Hae-sook looks like a living embodiment of Korean tradition. In fact, she would be nothing, if not for the pride of the tradition to which she has devoted her entire life and now officially represents.The 60-year-old is a master of the gayageum, a 12-stringed Korean zither; an authority in its academic studies and the president of the National Gugak Center, a state-run institute dedic

Jan. 11, 2015

Mong-ryong uses his MacBook to study while talking to friends on a smartphone. Chun-hyang wears canvas shoes under her short pink dress. They first meet at a club. The state-run National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s production of “Different Chunhyang” (2014) by Andrei Serban was very different from any of the previous productions of the classical Korean love story ― between Mong-ryong, the son of a nobleman, and Chun-hyang, the daughter of a low-class retired female entertainer, during the Joseo

Jan. 9, 2015

Dance“Multiplicity, Forms of Silence and Emptiness”: Kicking off the 2015 ballet season, Universal Ballet Korea will be staging Nacho Duato’s “Multiplicity, Forms of Silence and Emptiness” as its season opener. The 1999 ballet is one of Duato’s best-known works and landed the choreographer the prestigious Benois de la Dance prize. As a homage to one of classical music’s greatest, Johann Sebastian Bach, the two-act ballet tells the story of Bach’s music by combining both baroque music and modern

Jan. 9, 2015

Art meets music and technology becomes fashion as creative minds across ever-broadening fields join hands in search of new inspirations and innovative solutions.Although crossover projects have been commonplace in the global art and music scene for some time now, collaborations today seem to know no limits, churning out pair-ups that were never imagined before. In this overarching global trend, Korea is no exception. A scene from changgeuk “Medea” (NCCK)A scene from “Gongmudoha” (National Gugak

Jan. 9, 2015

BOSTON (AP) ― Boston residents in the newly formed United States valued a robust press as much as their history and currency if the contents of a time capsule dating back to a decade after the Revolutionary War are any guide. When conservators at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston gingerly removed items from the box Tuesday, they found five tightly folded newspapers, a medal depicting George Washington, a silver plaque, two dozen coins, including one dating to 1655, and the seal of the Commonwealth

Jan. 7, 2015

Louvre MuseumPARIS (AFP) ― The famous Louvre in France received 9.3 million visitors last year, retaining its title as the most-visited museum in the world, the Paris attraction announced Tuesday.Foreign visitors represented 70 percent of ticket sales, with Americans, Chinese, Italians, Britons and Brazilians visiting in strong numbers over 2014, the Louvre said in a statement.The total number of tourists who came in to admire works of art and antiquities including Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, was up 1

Jan. 7, 2015

NEW YORK (AP) ― Sting will be going down with his ship.Producer Jeffrey Seller said Tuesday that the Grammy Award-winning songwriter’s Broadway musical “The Last Ship” will close when his stint in the show ends Jan. 24 at the Neil Simon Theatre.Sting, who wrote the songs, jumped into the musical in early December, playing a shipyard foreman that had been portrayed by Jimmy Nail. While that improved sales, they didn’t skyrocket and the future looked bleak without him.“We made the musical we wante

Jan. 7, 2015

More than 700 pieces of Korean art in possession of the Smithsonian Museum are now available to view online as the Washington-based museum released some 40,000 digitized images of ancient Asian art on its website (open.asia.si.edu). The Korean collection includes celadon of the Goryeo period (918-1392), Buddhist paintings, folding screen paintings, porcelain and a lacquered wood box inlaid with mother-of-pearls that date back to the Joseon period (1392-1910).  A Buddhist painting dating to the G

Jan. 6, 2015

TOKYO (AFP) ― Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami is to offer advice to troubled readers in an agony uncle column on his website, his publisher said Tuesday.The website, named “Murakami-san no tokoro” or “Mr. Murakami’s place,” will solicit problems from fans of the surrealist, whose novels are published in dozens of languages around the world.The publicity-shy writer will pen answers to queries, offering his opinions and advice on how to tackle all manner of difficulties, said Shinchosha Publishi

Jan. 6, 2015

“Nanta,” a nonverbal performance produced by Song Seung-hwan, has been seen by over 10 million people around the world, the show’s production company said. The show, which premiered in 1997, is Korea’s first performance to hit the mark. The milestone was set on Dec. 29 and the ticket sale tally stood at 10,085,010 as of Dec. 31, PMC Production said. Based on events in the kitchen of a Korean restaurant, “Nanta” is mainly carried by percussive rhythms created by cooks drumming and banging knives,

Jan. 6, 2015

Pope Francis is expected to name as many as 12 new cardinals in the coming days, and a Korean cleric may make the list, Vatican observers say. The Wall Street Journal and some other foreign media outlets reported last week that in the appointments, Francis, the first pontiff born outside Europe in more than 1,000 years, may seek to reshape the Roman Catholic hierarchy to better reflect regions where the church is flourishing. The Philippines, as it boasts one of the largest Roman Catholic commun

Jan. 4, 2015

Pop Music“The Swell Season Live in Seoul”: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, widely known for their lead roles in the hit indie musical film “Once,” will be reviving their 2007 on-screen chemistry with a special live performance in Seoul. The duo’s single “Falling Slowly” landed the film an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2008. Hansard and Irglova will be performing on Jan. 10 and 11 at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts with ticket prices ranging from 66,000 won to 110,000 won. F

Jan. 2, 2015

A new year always brings with it a sense of anticipation. For culture lovers in Korea, 2015 seems to have plenty of things to look out for, from a chance to see the world’s hottest conductor today in action to original productions of hit musicals getting Korean runs. Here are some of the year’s most anticipated shows and performances in music, theater and performing arts. Classical music Fans of classical music are already buzzing about the coming performances of world-class orchestras in Seoul

Dec. 31, 2014

After a turbulent 2014, the New Year has finally arrived. In what feels like a nice respite, 2015 is the Year of the Sheep, a meek and gentle creature often associated with peace, harmony and compatibility. The sheep is the eighth animal in the 12-year cycle. It is the guardian animal for the time between 1 and 3 p.m. The previous sheep year was 2003. Year of the Sheep or the Goat? In Chinese, the animal sign for 2015 is “yang,” an inclusive term for various horned ruminating mammals. So, Year o

Dec. 31, 2014