numbers. These traveling groups faced resistance and found it increasingly difficult to sustain an itinerant lifestyle—especially within the context of the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945) and the Korean War (1950–1953).34 In the 1960s, owing to the efforts of Sim Usŏng, a Seoul-based namsadang group was established.
Members of the 1980 SamulNori quartet lineup were no strangers to the namsadang culture. The fathers of Kim Duk Soo and Lee Kwang Soo belonged to namsadang troupes while supporting their families in Taejŏn and Yesan, respectively, and Kim Yong-bae and Lee Kwang Soo were the youngest members of the Seoul namsadang troupe. Later, SamulNori’s promotional materials would accentuate this connection as lineage.35
The performance at Space Theater was the first time the quartet introduced the elements of dance and song—drawn in part from the namsadang repository—into their project’s expanding orbit. As the quartet’s newest member, Lee brought an expertise that added a welcome dimension to the group. A gifted singer, Lee took the lead with a narrative prayer song called “Pinari.” The pinari was typically performed by the namsadang to mark their arrival at a village. A complex text, the chanted song seeks to clear the grounds of malevolent forces and beseeches the village’s tutelary spirits to bless all inhabitants. The pinari is infused with religious sensibilities that nod to an older Korea’s syncretic relationship with Buddhism, shamanism, and Confucianism. Lee explained in an interview that as a young child, he would often accompany his father, Yi Chomsŏk, to namsadang performances. With a special aptitude for words, he became familiar with the basic contours of the text in his youth (Lee Kwang Soo interview, February 20, 2009).36 Lee’s rendition of the pinari did not stray far from the version that was performed by the Seoul namsadang troupe, and was later passed on to younger musicians such as Park An-ji [Pak Anji] (Howard 2006, 16).
FIGURE 1.5 “Kŏllipp’ae p’ungmul” program: the SamulNori quartet’s first solo appearance at the Space Theater. Photograph courtesy of SamulNori Hanullim.
Space Theater’s pamphlet for the concert included a rare image of SamulNori (figure 1.5). The musicians were photographed from a higher vantage point, circumambulating the iconic stone pagoda in the courtyard of the Konggan Group Building.37 The aerial shot shows three tasseled hats (sangmo) captured in midspin, with white streamers creating arcs around the performers while they play their instruments. This image documents a moment when the SamulNori project embarked on a new direction. Previously, the quartet’s performances at the Space Theater involved playing only while in a seated position—dubbed “samul nori anjŭnban” by Sim Usŏng. After September 1980, dance (and song) would find a natural place in SamulNori’s diversifying portfolio. And the all-male quartet (now with its storied lineup) was able to draw on another rich reservoir—the namsadang—for its ongoing project.
Additionally, the program also marks the SamulNori project’s turn toward embracing (and adapting) aspects of religiosity in its performances. Of the different types of itinerant or semi-itinerant performance troupes that traversed the Korean peninsula, the kŏllipp’ae maintained the strongest association with Buddhism and shamanism. According to Sim Usŏng’s study of the namsadang, the kŏllipp’ae (fund-raising group) would travel and sojourn at Buddhist temples. In exchange for food from the monastic and lay communities, the troupe would perform acts like the pinari and the tangsan kut—a ritual drawn from shamanistic ceremonies that propitiates the village shrine’s god. Because I discuss the pinari in chapter 5, Nathan Hesselink’s English translation of Sim’s analysis of the kŏllipp’ae is particularly instructive here:
A typical group was composed of fifteen or so male members organized hierarchically under a top-ranking hwaju (leader). Their primary function was to perform household rituals for individual families on behalf of a local Buddhist temple. After a dramatic prelude or pre-show in which the troupe would perform percussion music and dance (p’ungmul), mask dance, and (depending on the skills of the members) bowl spinning, they would then engage in a series of propitiatory rituals for the deities of the living quarters, kitchen, and domestic well. Once the majority of the household rituals had been completed, the troupe would then conclude with a sŏngju kut (house god ritual). This performance of percussion and vocal music featured the recitation of a ritual offering (pinari); during and after this concluding ritual, grain and money were collected as payment. Kŏllipp’ae activity was absorbed into the local (rural) p’ungmul scene sometime during the Chosŏn period, and it continues to be an important component of student-based and community-led p’ungmul organizations in modern times. The namsadang would take on many of the kŏllipp’ae’s roles in the early twentieth century.38 (Hesselink 2012, 21–22)
At the September 1980 concert, the quartet performed eight elements stemming from the kŏllipp’ae. They appear in this order on the program: mun kut (ritual performed at a gate); tangsan kut (ritual performed at the village shrine); chowang kut (ritual for the kitchen god); tŏju kut (ritual for the house god); umul kut (ritual played at the village well); pinari; mul soji (ritual burning of paper); and p’an kut (an exuberant showcase of p’ungmul drumming and dance).39 In an effort to evoke some spatial semblance of temple grounds, the quartet made strategic use of the Konggan Building’s unique architectural features—features that were designed by Kim Sugŭn.
With Lee Kwang Soo taking the lead as the kkwaenggwari (small gong) player, the quartet performed the tangsan kut in front of the pagoda (t’ap) in the building’s courtyard. The audience moved with the performers as they processed down the stairs to the Space Theater, located in the basement. As they entered the theater, Lee began the pinari, which then segued into the offering of the mul soji. The latter involves the burning of white hanji (traditional handmade paper), designed to appease the spirits. And despite the cramped quarters, the p’an kut—a danced number—was performed inside Konggan’s experimental stage (i.e., black box theater). In an interview, Lee confessed that although there were minor details that were not perfectly executed, the concert on the whole was an enormous success (Lee Kwang Soo interview, February 20, 2009).40 The concert also yielded an important development of the SamulNori project—the mun kut, pinari, and p’an kut began to be incorporated into the quartet’s later performances. The combination of the mun kut / pinari and p’an kut became the bookends for what eventually became the standard ninety-minute SamulNori program: mun kut / pinari; samdo sŏl changgo karak (rhythms from three regions, played on changgo); samdo nongak karak (rhythms from three regions, played in samul nori formation); and p’an kut. In just a few years’ time, the quartet would then regularly present this program at venues in the United States, Europe, and Japan (figure 1.6).
With a growing buzz over the quartet’s performances, and the celebrated SamulNori cast now in place, the group began to take off both literally and metaphorically. In the midst of travel to various theaters in and around Seoul, the group continued to mine the rhythmic material not only from p’ungmul but also from the neighboring soundscape of Korean shamanism. When they exhausted their own expertise, they studied informally with specialists or elder teachers. The Songnisan (Songni mountain) research trips to rehearse and to study with village elders were fruitful, and were even documented by Japanese photographer Ichiro Shimizu in a strikingly beautiful photographic book.41
The quartet also engaged in an ongoing process of revision. Arrangements of p’ungmul rhythms were subject to editing, expansion, and resequencing. Chapter 2 will provide insight into the fine-tuning of an arrangement that would later become known as “Yŏngnam nongak”—a piece that we will learn more about. In Korean, the terms chagŏp (work) and chŏngni (organization or arrangement) have been used by quartet members to describe their recursive process. In many ways, this process constituted
