It was November 5 when I paid a visit to the Onnuri Art Hall of Suwon Youth Center. The auditorium was full of loud applause from the audience. The traditional musical ‘Excellent Adventure’ was planned as part of the support project of afterschool arts and culture education for youth and children under the title, ‘Sangsang School’ arranged by both the Korea Arts and Culture Education Service (KACES) and the Korea Youth Work Agency (KYWA) since 2009. Approximately 130 students from 9 youth centers in Gyeonggi-do have taken part in this musical performance. Are you ready to take a trip to the spot full of the children’s passion? Let’s go!

Enjoy the pride and joy of arts

The participants are from Goriul Youth Culture Center, Gwangjeong-dong Youth Culture Center, Manan Youth Center, Manan Youth Culture Center, Suwon Youth Culture Center, Jangan Youth Culture Center, Yeongtong Youth Culture Center, and Icheon Changcheon Youth Culture Center. More than 130 students and several arts educators have worked together with sweat running down in beads to make a musical. Ma Seong-hyeok, leader of Fusion Korea (fusion traditional musical group) who planned and supervised the musical, explained the background of the ‘Excellent Adventure’ by mentioning, “I thought the arts and culture education would have a positive influence on children. Also, I thought it would be possible to find their pride and identification about Korea through the education of traditional music. All of our performance such as Gayageum play, oriental jazz, and Samulnori with B-boy are part of our search for it.”

As explained by Ma, the ‘Excellent Adventure’ is an exciting musical which hits the children’s taste. Two heroes Changil and Yubi meet Dr. Martin, and time-travel to the past and the future. The children’s act, which was full of passion and excitement combined with the traditional music performance, was enough to break any prejudice of the audience toward them. Most of the audience expected that the level of their performance would not be very good because it was just a product of the students’ afterschool arts education activity.

However, the output was surprising to them by creating bright and passionate atmosphere on the stage.
During all four acts, the adults as well as the young students were completely absorbed in their acting. The musical was talking about the reality of our education versus the students’ dreams, and a hu-mor. It was also delivering a unique feeling by combining modern dance with traditional musical.

As soon as the performance was over, the other participants started a B-boy dance battle. All their performances, reflecting their endeavor just like a strong wall elaborately piled up with marvels one by one, were filled with joy of arts and culture. Even though there were a few students with disability, they made a great harmony with the non-disabled during the performance.
The performance of ‘Sangsang School’ served a place for communication and joy of harmony. I hope similar attempts like this will be actively made in many other places so that more young students will be able to dream their various dreams through the arts and culture education.

Written & Photographed by Kim Yun-jeong (Correspondent in Gyeonggi-do)