Look & Listen: Korean Art and Music of Family Devotion

Explore Korea’s enduring tradition of family devotion through the performance of pansori, Korea’s unique form of musical storytelling, coupled with a close examination of related artworks, such as a colorful folding screen, ornamented ceramics, and an embroidered wedding gown. Vocalist and scholar Chan E. Park performs key scenes from the famous pansori play Song of Sim Cheong, in which a devoted daughter sacrifices herself in an effort to restore her blind father’s eyesight. Saved by the Dragon King and nurtured in his underwater Crystal Palace, she is reborn as a lotus flower, marries the emperor, and is reunited with her father.

Vocalist Chan E. Park teaches Korean language, 文学, and performing arts at Ohio State University. She has given numerous lectures, workshops, and pansori performances around the world. She is the author of Voices from the Straw Mat: Toward an Ethnography of Korean Story Singing. Sooa Im McCormick, curator of Korean art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Sunwoo Hwang, Korean program associate at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, will guide viewers through close-up looks at Korean artworks that amplify the traditional themes of Song of Sim Cheong.