“That’s something for the vice-minister, no less”: A Korean Fairytale in the State Puppet Theatre in Gdańsk
Joanna Stacewicz-Podlipska
joanna.stacewicz-podlipska@ispan.plInstitute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4504-1546
Abstract
This article discusses the circumstances of the staging of the play Arirang in a Polish puppet theatre. This dramatised Korean fairy tale was based on short stories by Dr Tonchu Ru, a Korean living in the Polish People’s Republic, whose biography constitutes a separate important thread of the story. The play premiered on 31st October 1953, four months later than originally planned; this was due to the hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, which forced the producers to get involved in ministry-level exchanges and special diplomacy. Affected by the pressure of a centrally controlled message about the war, the staging was part the Polish ‘engaged’ artists response to the armed conflict in a ‘brotherly’ country. In the face of this conflict, the Polish-Korean ‘parallels’ identified for decades gained a new context, and with it a socialist realist costume.
Keywords:
"Arirang", Koreans in Poland, Tadeusz Tonchu Ru, Natalia Bojarska, Ali Bunsch, State Puppet Theatre in Gdańsk, socialist realism in puppet theatreReferences
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Authors
Joanna Stacewicz-Podlipskajoanna.stacewicz-podlipska@ispan.pl
Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4504-1546
Joanna Stacewicz-Podlipska - PhD, assistant professor at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, editor-in-chief of Biuletyn Historii Sztuki [Bulletin of Art History], graduate of MA studies at the Institute of Art History of the University of Warsaw and doctoral studies at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, author of books and numerous scientific articles on history of scenography and relationship between visual arts and performing arts.
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