• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.24
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• pp.46-61
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• 2011

This paper considers how Koreans found their positions in the complex, overlapping, disjunctive, and interconnected "Oriental" repertoires in the early Cold War years. When we use the term, Oriental, it should require careful translation from context to context because it may be subject to very different sets of contextual circumstances. Klein views Cold War Orientalism in the complex of various regions including East Asian and Southeast Asian countries; however, when Koreans are contextualized at the center of the discussion the Orientalism produces another discursive meaning. Even though many great researches have been done on Korean immigrations, Korean American literatures, and US-Korea economic, political, and foreign relations, not many discussions about Korean American popular cultures have been discussed in the basis of the Oriental discourse in the United States.For this argument, this paper investigates the performative trajectory of a girl group "Kim Sisters" who began to sing at the US military show stages in South Korea in 1952 during the Korean War. They moved to Las Vegas show stages in 1959 and later appeared in Ed Sullivan Show more than thirty times during the 1960s and 70s. Meanwhile, they not only returned to South Korea often times to perform at the stages for Korean audiences in South Korea but also played at the shows for Korean immigrants in the United States. Korean American immigration to the United States has followed a different route from the majority of Asian American population such as Chinese or Japanese Americans, which means that efforts to compare this particular group to the others may be unnecessary. Rather doing comparative studies, this paper, therefore, focuses on the formation of the intersecting and multiple identities of Korean female entertainers who were forced or forced themselves to be incorporated into the American popular "Oriental" imagination, which I would call "embedded" identities. This embeddedness has been continuously maintained in the configuration of Korean characters in the United States. This will help not only to observe the discursive aspect of Asian American identity politics but also to claim a space for comparatively invisible Korean characters in the United States which has been often times neglected and not brought into a major Asian American or Oriental historical discourse. This paper starts with American scenes at the beginning of the twentieth century to trace Americans Oriental imagination which was observable in the various American cultural landscape and popular music soundscape. It will help us more clearly understand the production and consumption of the Korean "Oriental" performances during the early Cold War period and especially the Korean performance in the American venue, silently overshadowed into the political, social, and cultural framework.

• (The) Research of the performance art and culture
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• no.37
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• pp.249-293
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• 2018

The Musical Theatre was a popular art genre that originated from the western musical tradition represented by the European opera. In the twentieth century, it bloomed around Broadway in the United States. It is also one of the commercial arts which is popularly loved by the public in the field of performing arts all over the world at present. Due to the nature of this genre, the development of dramas and the expression of characters use music, not words or gestures, as the main medium. And the style of music reacts sensitively to the taste of the public, not to a particular class. When Japan colonized Korea, the empire strongly believed modernization equaled westernization and Japan was the one who could awaken Korean. The Japanese colonial music education was intended to bring cooperation and obedience to Japan by forcibly injecting Japanese ideology and culture into Joseon people. The music education of colonialism with the textbook of the "Songs for public education(보통교육 창가집)" compiled by the Japanese government was a sparkstone for the conversion of the Korean musical identity to Japanese and Western music. In addition to the capitalistic economical mechanism for establishing a South Korean government friendly with the United States during the Cold War after liberation, and the rush of American Pop culture represented by 'the show stage in 8th US Arm' and 'movies' which are to be the influence of invisible 'new cultural imperialism', our traditional music was confined to the meaning of 'Korean music', meaning 'past music'. In Korea, after the liberation, the musical was introduced by the influx of American popular culture. In accordance with the cultural policy of Park Jeong-hee regime, which aimed to spread the 'healthy culture' through the modernization of traditional arts, 'The Yegreen(예그린악단)' was founded. However, the plan to create a contemporary performing art based on Korean national arts showed the possibility of success in 1966 with the success of , but soon after, they have been destined to fall into an institution that has lost their ability to operate on their own due to the suspension of the sponsorship of the regime. Due to the cultural imperialist strategy of the influence of Japanese imperialism's colonial music education and influx of American popular culture after liberation, in the early days of Korean musicals, our traditional aesthetic style brought about the situation of the 1960 's, which did not become an independent ethnic art through the exchange and expansion with Western music. This is the background of the western licensed musicals led by the Korean musical market in the 21st century as well as the main cause of musical creation based on western music.