Poster for the Seoul Arts Center’s “Dudumchit Silent Disco”
Major concert halls in South Korea are expanding into hands-on cultural spaces where audiences take part, learn and linger. The move aims to meet demand from today’s audiences, who value direct experience over passively watching a performance. Venues also hope to reach potential audiences by offering ways to experience a theater beyond attending a show.
The Seoul Arts Center is making active use of its outdoor plaza this summer. From the 21st through October 31, it will hold an outdoor screening series called “Staircase Theater” on its stepped plaza every Friday and Saturday, for a total of 16 sessions. Using the steps as seating, the center will show recordings of its own productions, including “Othello,” “Pericles” and “A Doll’s House,” free of charge on a large screen. In October, the screenings will be paired with an outdoor book festival so visitors can enjoy performance footage alongside the original books.
The convention that classical audiences must sit quietly in their seats is also breaking down. At “Dudumchit Silent Disco” on the 23rd, attendees can wear headphones and dance freely to a blend of classical music and EDM. On the 30th, the venue will host “Marché Farmers Market @ Seocho_Haetmiljang 11,” selling seasonal produce and food. The aim is to broaden the venue’s role into a space where anyone can linger in the plaza and encounter culture naturally, rather than a place one visits only with a performance ticket.
Educational programs that make use of venue infrastructure are also widening the scope of hands-on experiences. The fall lineup of the Sejong Arts Academy, run by the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts from the 22nd through December 15, offers 13 courses spanning music, art, musicals and ballet. The academy is introducing “Hanok Drawing,” in which participants visit spots around Seoul such as the nearby Seochon and Samcheong-dong neighborhoods to sketch the scenery, and it continues to offer ballet instruction for participants ranging from children to seniors. In “Grace Ballet” for seniors, participants can learn basic movements using the ballet barre and correct their posture under Choi Ri-na, a former principal dancer with the Eifman Ballet. The academy also runs “Hidden Voice,” in which students learn art songs and opera arias and then take the stage themselves.
The GS Arts Center, which launched its first educational programs last year, has expanded its participatory offerings this year. Its “Club Latte” introductory arts program, running from September through November, covers five fields: crafts, film, photography, poetry and jazz. Rather than simply attending lectures, the roughly 20 participants sew by hand, take photographs and read poetry aloud. Of particular note is a course in Chiang Mai-style hand-sewing taught with the “Death Sewing Club” — known by its Korean nickname “Jukbakeul” — which has sold out at every workshop and sparked a hand-sewing craze. Another program invites participants to watch a film unveiled on-site with actress Han Ye-ri and then share their perspectives with one another.
There is also a growing move to use a venue’s hidden spaces themselves as content. Last month, the Sejong Center extended its “Backstage Tour,” which had been run mainly for foreign visitors, to include Korean visitors as well. Every Tuesday, for 70 minutes, participants tour the main theater’s seating and backstage areas, along with rehearsal rooms of the Seoul Metropolitan Arts companies, to see how a performance comes together. The schedule also includes climbing to a rooftop observation deck for a view of Gyeongbokgung Palace and the Gwanghwamun Square area. The Lotte Concert Hall likewise runs a backstage tour, letting audiences experience the behind-the-stage spaces and venue structure they rarely see.
Programs in which audiences become part of the performance itself are also on the rise. The Seoul Metropolitan Chorus is offering a sing-along, in which audiences sing themselves, at its “Midsummer Messiah” at the Sejong Center on the 27th and 28th. The performance, which has sold out for six straight years, adds audience participation this year so that attendees can experience Handel’s “Messiah” more actively.
Introductory homepage for the Silent Disco event at New York’s Lincoln Center
Such changes were seen first at major overseas venues. New York’s Lincoln Center held more than 25 free silent disco parties this summer using its outdoor “The Dance Floor” at its festival “Summer for the City.” The programs ranged from a disco with American Ballet Theatre (ABT) dancers to parties spanning K-pop, salsa and hip-hop. London’s Southbank Centre, a signature venue complex, also runs workshops, master classes and creative activities for children through adults throughout the year.
Critics have long argued that using a concert hall — a core piece of a city’s cultural infrastructure — only during performances fails to make the most of the space’s value. The reasoning is that venues should lower their barriers so citizens can come to learn, take part and linger even when no show is on. What was once a question of “what to go see” has become “what you can experience there” — a new trend and competitive edge for today’s concert halls.