• (The) Research of the performance art and culture
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• no.18
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• pp.315-346
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• 2009

Korean 'Sin-Pa' play is a way to examine self-reliance of Korean culture and influence of Japanese culture on the Korean one in the early modern times. Although the 'Sin-Pa' play has been estimated negatively in many aspects, such an estimation can be different depending on the methodology. Therefore, I tried to explain a characteristics of the rise of 'Sin-Pa' play. While making these trials, I made efforts to reappreciate the developing process of Korean 'Sin-Pa' play and its theatrical structure and value. Particularly, I focused on structure of 'Sin-Pa' play in the context of an actual cognition of colonized Korea. Based on the 'Sin-Pa' play's repertoires I found out that one of the representative characteristics of Korean 'Sin-Pa' play is a changing process from orality to literacy. And I made attempts to uncover some ideological functions and their effects of 'Sin-Pa' play, focusing on and whose story line is usually consisted of 'provocation-pangs-defeat' while it interacted with 'provocation-pangs-penalty' of the structure of melodrama under the contemporary cultural conditions. 'Sin-Pa'' play can be considered as a performance mode to accept the Japanese value embedded in the colonized Korea since the 1910s on the one hand and to resist the overwhelming power of western culture imported through Japan on the other hand. In other words, it was closely related with the cultural-field of that period. Based on these results of this research, I tried to outline what the mode of 'Sin-Pa' was, what it reflected, and what it desired for under the influence of the contemporary cultural conditions. I analysed double qualities of 'Sin-Pa' play as a dominant narrative and/or a resistant narrative considering its relationship with the people of colonized Korea. And also I examined the place of the 'Sin-Pa' play in the history of theatre and in the history of culture.