pansori

판소리

pansori 판소리

  • in the background is a faded scan of a lino print, created after a visit to my father's hometown. the 해송 (sea pine tree) is native to that particular area, its dark bark color the result of humidity and the salty shore breeze.

판:: community, land, bodies, being

소리:: sound:: life, voice, drum, embodiment

판소리 / pansori: a corean storytelling performance practice that consists of a singer (sorikkun) and a drummer (gosu)—

the word stems from two characters: pan (판), referring to “a gathering of,” and sori (소리), meaning “sound, music” or “voice.” pansori’s exact origins are unclear, stemming from an amalgam of shamanism and folk performance through muga (shamanic songs) and as public entertainment by and for commonfolk. The stories told through these performances were passed down orally as generational knowledge, with travelling performers and regional mudang (corean shamans) sharing stories in public spaces + small farming villages. the practice is still very much orally and somatically shared, with each region of the peninsula having very different musical and narrative interpretations of dominant stories.

this clip is from the on/offline performance that my pansori teacher, Cultural Intangible Heritage Holder Min Hye Sung’s studio stages after every 산공부 (/san-gongbu/: intensive practice/study sessions in the countryside, usually during the summer and the winter), where students showcase a new 대목 (/daemok/: a musical piece, song) they’ve learned in the past 2-4 weeks. here, i sing a song from 흥보가 (/Heungbo-ga/: The Story of Heungbo), where Heungbo and his wife break open the first 박 (/bak/: gourd), the title of which is “첫박을 탄다” (“Break open the first gourd”).

This particular part of the song is sung through the perspective of Heungbo, where he and his wife are starving and desperate for food. They find three gourds, the first of which they contemplate breaking open in their desperation. In this video, I am in front of a linen curtain backdrop with light filtering through the back. While I sing and narrate, I emphasize the mood of the song with a fan I hold in my hand. Not shown are the drummer, who is accompanying me, and the audience members, shouting chuimsae (exclamations and sounds of encouragement and empathy for me, the singer, and the story I tell) throughout my performance.