[American Theatre Magazine]

May/June 2011

Great Exportations

What can we learn from the successful efforts of other nations to promote their theatre overseas?

By John Barry

South Korea: Go Global

There is a U.S. policy for globalization of the arts. But it's hidden in the agenda of the U.S. State Department, where, since 1999, the USIA's original mission—exporting culture abroad—has been placed under the leadership of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs. Since May 2009, that position has been occupied by Judith McHale, ex-CEO for Discovery Communications. Under her leadership, the department went to work on a 33-page roadmap for the 21st century, which was released in March 2010. In it she comes up with a strategic plan for bureaucratic reorganization to help "shape the narrative" and "deploy resources." Buried in that, on page 14, is a PowerPoint explanation of the purpose of a global arts policy:

That bromide-infused statement of goals is tough to disagree with in principle. But, beyond obvious references to 21st-century technology, what does "artistic collaboration" really mean? My conversations with publicly funded arts organizations and critics from South Korea—which has been vigorously introducing its own contemporary theatre culture to the rest of the world—indicated that when it comes to globalization, Americans may have something to learn.

Starting in the Cold War era, government funding of performing artists abroad has been seen by many in the U.S. as one more way for Americans to "shape the narrative" on a global level. According to Korean theatre critic and associate professor Sung-hee Choi, that's not necessarily how the global marketplace works. "If theatre is going to appeal to a world audience," Choi writes by e-mail from Seoul, "it needs to know what occupies peoples' minds." And those minds and identities are "getting ever more fragmented, diversified, and globalized." Instead of shaping the narrative, a nation trying to promote its work internationally needs to become part of the story.

And that's a goal that Korea Arts Management Service, with the support of the Ministry for Culture, Sports, and Tourism, has been focusing its efforts on over the last several years. Other government organizations—Arts Council Korea, Korea Foundation, and Korea Literature Translation Institute—have become part of the concerted efforts to grow international interest in their theatre. That's a big step for a country where, a few decades ago, there was little in the way of modern theatrical culture, and where, until 1987, strict censorship laws were in effect.

It's a strategy that seems to have worked well for productions like Medea and Its Double, which won best director award at the 2007 Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre. In that production, director Hyoung-Taek Limb integrated a Greek tragedy into a Korean setting, mixing up Korean martial arts with techniques borrowed from the Beijing Opera as well as from classical Western theatre. The production arrived at New York City's La MaMa E.T.C. in January 2010 after being performed in Chile, India and Romania in 2009–10. The Pansori Project ZA's Sacheon-Ga, showcased at New York's Martin E. Segal Theatre this past January and funded partly by the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, has also received international attention for its interweaving of traditional Korean music, contemporary dance, pop music, and Brecht's The Good Woman of Szechuan.

In 1993, South Korea officially adopted its own policy of globalization: segyehwa. By challenging artistic and linguistic boundaries, Korean theatre, with government support, has developed work that transcends cultural barriers. And it sells.

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