A scene from a maskdance performance in the 2012 Andong International Maskdance Festival held in Angdong, North Gyeongsang Province last year.

(Photos: Andong Maskdance Festival Secretariat)

   The 2013 Andong International Maskdance Festival is slated to raise its curtain on Sept. 28 and continue for 10 days with 600 performances scheduled including those by foreign mask dance troupes.

The Korean mask dance troupes will present a number or exotic mask dances at the main stage in Hahoe village including the Kwanno Mask Dance, the Kosung Okdangdae, the Tongyoung Okangdae, and the Yangju pyolsandae, among others in the Korean programs. Foreign troupes scheduled to perform at Mask Dance Theater in Andong include Sinakharinwirot from Thailand, Anjali Memorial Committee, the Jing Ju Opera Troupe of National Taiwan Performing Arts, and Prisma Seni of Malaysia.

On Sept. 28, 2012, a little madness scene was unleashed for 10 days of mask dances with people in masks and dancing wildly as if to unfurl the secret inspirations hidden in their minds. This was the scene of the 2012 Andong Maskdance Festival, which won the top place for more than 10 years in the category of Korean Dance Festival representing Korea.

Andong maskdance festival selects its theme every year and tries to create a choreography to interpret the theme through various dance movements in order to bring out the hidden inspirations. This year’s theme is ‘Dreaming World, Birth of Hero.’ The theme attempts to show that masks when worn by dancers bring out the true nature of humans. 

Pseudonym and freedom are synonymous and in this sense, a mask dance festival is a scene of freedom as well as a scene of festivity.

Similar with the traditional mask dance, too, was created a scene of satire and humor for the unity of all to harmonize the tradition and off-beat culture and to recreate them in a modern sense in a bid to collect the creative nature of our times.

An aerial view of Hahoe Village, the venue of the 2012 Andong International Maskdance Festival.  

Through the recreation of such a nature of a Korean mask dance, steps are being taken to explore a new festive Hallyu scene. The Andong mask dance, having the Hahoe shaman mask dance as its pre

decessor going back some 800 years in history and festivals attract the world’s citizens in one place. Every year, more than 70,000 foreign tourists watch the Andong mask dance festival with such world organizations participating in it as the World Culture and Arts Federation with 54 member nations, the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Intangible Heritage Center, and the IOV with 180 member nations. 

So far, Andong, East Asia’s cultural town, has been doing its part in the area of the exchange of mask dance festivals in 20 nations including China, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, and Israel, among others. Masks are general cultural equipment that most easily show off cultural diversity in value well, doing its share of work as a medium for cultural exchange in the form of dance.

A survey of 100 blogs posted by foreigners on such internet sites as google.com and yahoo.com showed that the Andong Maskdance Festival appeared most often in the blogs mentioning mask dance festivals. Also, in a survey of foreigners’ understanding of Korean cultural festivals made by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Andong Maskdance Festival came out on top in terms of foreigners’ recognition of Korean dance festivals with 26.2 percent, showing that the traditional festival in Andong is widely known to foreigners.

The annual Andong Maskdance Festival owes its birth to the Hahoe maskdance drama, which was named an Intangible World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 1997 and won various awards both at home and abroad as it showed off various forms of mask dance, exploding the spiritual excitement to villages everywhere on earth. The event has reached adulthood now and is preparing to industrialize itself, taking advantage of its potential to grow far above its artistic value.

The Andong event went from being just an art performance to a mass entertainment event with three kilometers of street parades in Andong. Other exciting dances include ‘talara’ dance taken from the Hahoe maskdance drama with clothes and masks made with design themes borrowed from traditional customs in Andong to get the spectators physically experience the real aspects of Andong traditional culture.

A foreign maskdance troup performance at the 2012 Andong International Maskdance Festival.

For the first time this year, the audience will be given masks and will crowd the streets as if they are participating in the street mask dance, which is why the admission fees are set at 7,000 won for adults, 5,000 won for children and an additional 2,000 won for those who want to wear masks as if they are participants in the street mask dance performances.

Andong, a provincial medium-sized city with a population of 170,000, has managed to organize the event with its neighborhood manpower and local companies. Performance manpower has built a solid foundation based on the experiences and expertise it has accumulated over the years by making the most of university, dance, and cultural troupes in the region. Organizers have successfully produced 24 masks based on the storylines they have explored while visiting each village, and developed on its own the festival’s official “Tal La La Dance,” based on the maskdance of the Hahoebyolsinguktalnori. 

An opening scene of the 2012 Andong International Maskdance Festival.

Andong is a center of Confucian culture, inheriting the lifestyle and spirit of old-time scholars with a taste for literature and the arts. A city with the tradition of classical scholars’ study, Andong has Korea’s spiritual and cultural roots, boasting such major tourist attractions as the Dosan Confucian School, Nongunjeongsa Temple, Hahoe Village, and the Korean Studies Advancement Center.