Korean performing arts, including staged reading of Han Kang work, to gain spotlight at the 80th Avignon Festival

Global spotlights have illuminated various aspects of Korean culture — notably K-pop and K-dramas — but far less attention has been paid to Korean performing arts.

That will change this summer as nine works by seven Korean artists take the stage at the prestigious Avignon Festival. Korean has been selected as the official guest language of the 80th edition of the French performing arts festival, which will take place in the Provence city from July 4 to 25.

The guest language program was introduced in 2023 to spotlight diverse forms of performing arts connected to a selected language. English was the inaugural guest language, followed by Spanish and Arabic in subsequent years. Korean is the first Asian language to be chosen for the program. 

"We understood how rich and strong Korean performing arts are and also how [strong] this language is," said the festival's artistic director, Tiago Rodrigues, in a video message during a news conference held in central Seoul on Thursday. 

"The language is now something that makes young people very curious that can be [a real] discovery for larger audiences. So we found that [the] Korean language is the patrimony, the historical richness, but also the vibrant contemporary creation that we wanted to offer our audiences."

Nine works invited include a staged reading of Nobel laureate Han Kang's "We Do Not Part" (2021) featuring actor Lee Hye-young under the title "Olseau."

Award-winning performer Koo Ja-ha will stage three works "Cuckoo," "The History of Korean Western Theatre" and "Haribo Kimchi," while contemporary dancer Her Sung-im will stage "1 Degree Celsius," discussing environmental problems. 

"The barrier of Avignon felt unimaginable, but the fact that my work will be staged at the center of the festival feels surreal, and I feel extremely honored," said Her in a video call from Britain Thursday.

"My work talks about climate change, which is a subject that some might want to avoid or feel heavy. But the subject actually started from a conversation with my 10-year-old son, which made me feel guilty about burdening the future generation."

Lee Kyung-sung's "Island Story", Lee Jin-yeob's "Mulji," Lee Jar-ram's "Snow, snow, snow" and Liquid Sound's "KIN: Yeonhee Project 1" are among other works invited. 

The Korean programs at the Avignon Festival have been curated in partnership with Korea Arts Management Services and Seoul Performing Arts Festival.  

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]