The Sejong Center for the Performing Arts will offer discounts on local musical performances in order to boost the domestic arts industry, the center’s president Bahg In-bae said on Monday.

“The center charges an additional 30 percent fee to events that lease the performing halls for more than 15 days, of which the majority are musicals. However, we will exempt the fee for locally created musicals, which account for 10 percent of all musicals staged in Korea at the moment,” Bahg said at a press conference.

“In order to have the musical genre have its two feet firmly on Korean cultural ground, we need to raise that portion to more than 50 percent,” said Lim In-taek, director of the Seoul Metropolitan Musical Theater.

Also included in the center’s plan for 2013 are the so-called participatory arts where citizens join professional artists on stage to share their experience and bring fresh air to the local culture scene. From April 25-28, the Seoul Metropolitan Opera will stage Verdi’s opera “Aida” with 45 choir members and 41 actors selected from the public.

“We wanted to break the widely-held view of art as being distant from ordinary people. We wanted something new and dynamic,” said Kim Hak-min, director of the show.

“We will strengthen imagination, communication and support for art this year,” Bahg said.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)