Korean Masks

As I already said in my Claudia and Quentin design post number 7, I will do a short post on Korean masks, which I used for my last designs.

The Korean mask dance is also called 'Talchum'. Talchum is a combination of the words 탈 (tal) which means mask and 춤(chum) which means dance. There are different kinds of mask dance in Korea depending on the area . One of the best known is the 'Bongsan Talchum'.

It is performed during spring and was originally used as a ritual to drive away evil spirits (during Joseon era from 1392 until the occupation of Japan started in Korea in 1910). Later it changed to a more festive folk dance. The Bongsan talchum dance has a variety of characters like a Buddhist priest, servants, aristocrats and a shaman. But there are a lot more other characters. The masks are carved out of  wood.

I found a website where they explain the different regional mask. If interested have a look here.

Some images

source

source

source

source

Another very famous mask dance is the one in the Hahoe village in Andong. The Hahoe village is one of the few old villages in Korea which still preserve the original living conditions as they had during the Joseon dynasty. Those villages were developed by some influential aristocratic families during the Joseon era. Hahoe village in Andong as well as the Yangdong village in Gyeongju received the title 'Historic Villages Of Korea' and are part of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. 

source

You can find those masks in the Hahoe Mask Museum in Andong

I actually wanted to quote something from the book  

'Dancing Cultures: Globalization, Tourism and Identity in the Anthropology of Dance' by Helene Neveu Kringelbach and Jonathan Skinner, 2012, Berghan Books, but for some reasons I couldn't select the part I wanted to I took a screenshot of it. I just wanted to add it because it describes very good how the masks are made and what they are used for.

 So I had to make the picture really big so that anyone will actual be able to read it :) Sorry if it looks weird^^

• this link is for a very good website where you can read about the mask dance as well as find out when any mask dance festivals or other festivals will take place in the Andong region.

source

This video is an introduction to the Bongsan mask dance and shows you what those dances/plays actually look like