Songs for 'Great Leaders' : Ideology and Creativity in North Korean Music and Dance

Famously reclusive and secretive, North Korea can be seen as a theatre that projects itself through music and performance. The first book-length account of North Korean music and dance in any language other than Korean, Songs for "Great Leaders" pulls back the curtain on this theatre for the first time. Renowned ethnomusicologist Keith Howard moves from the first songs written in the northern part of the divided Korean peninsula in 1946 to the performances in February 2018 by a North Korean troupe visiting South Korea for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games. Through an exceptionally wide range of sources and a perspective of deep cultural competence, Howard explores old revolutionary songs and new pop songs, developments of Korean instruments, the creation of revolutionary operas, and mass spectacles, as well as dance and dance notation, and composers and compositions. The result is a nuanced and detailed account of how song, together with other music and dance production, forms the soundtrack to the theater of daily life, embedding messages that tell the official history, the exploits of leaders, and the socialist utopia yet-to-come. Based on fieldwork, interviews, and resources in private and public archives and libraries in North Korea, South Korea, China, North America and Europe, Songs for "Great Leaders" opens up the North Korean regime in a way never before attempted or possible. Cover Songs for “Great Leaders” Copyright Contents List of Figures, Tables, and Notations Acknowledgments Introduction Songs as the soundtrack to North Korea Conventions 1 Songs for the Great Leader Songs for the people and of the people Songs and song composers Songs assembled for the concert stage Songs to build the state Songs built on the foundations of folk songs 2 Instruments of the People Kaeryang akki: “Improving” Korean instruments Soviet and/​or Chinese influence? North Korean particularity The chang saenap Winds of change The “hand wind zither” 3 Pulling at Harp Strings Discarding the old? Retaining the national zither, kayagŭm Creating stringed instruments, from old to new Discarding and creating lutes and dulcimers Drums of persuasion A new harp, or zither, or both? 4 Opera for the Revolution Preface: Juche ideology “Sea of Blood” “A True Daughter of the Party” “The Flower Girl” “Oh! Tell the Forest” and “The Song of Mount Kŭmgang” 5 Contextualizing Revolutionary Operas Are revolutionary operas revolutionary? Guided by the leaders Before revolutionary opera Beyond revolutionary opera 6 What Revolutionary Operas Do Revolutionary operas as song operas Song constructions Portable songs Opera as ideology, and opera as spectacle 7 From Spectacles to Dance Watching the 50,000 Spectacles, calisthenics, gymnastics Notating dances, prescribing spectacles Chamo p’yogibŏp A pan-​Korean notation? Ch’oe Sŭnghŭi and the development of dance in North Korea North Korean dance: An overview 8 Composing the Nation Learning to compose Songs as foundations Upscaling songs . . . . . . Back to symphonies Isang Yun, from South to North 9 Songs for New Leaders Authorized pop Pop as state telegraph Footsteps of the general Onward toward the “final victory” Rolands and Yamahas Epilogue Notes References Index "North Korea is often said to be unknown: a reclusive and secretive state. It behaves as if the whole country is a theatre that projects itself through performance. Song, together with other music and dance production, forms the soundtrack to the theater of daily life, embedding messages that tell the official history, the exploits of leaders, and the socialist utopia yet-to-come. Songs form the foundation stones of revolutionary operas, of instrumental and orchestral tone poems, and are rearranged in countless versions for use by children in kindergartens, for 50,000 young people who dance annually in celebration of the Eternal President's birthday, and for the 100,000 participants of mass spectacles such as the Arirang Festival. North Koreans are reminded daily on state-controlled television news how their songs are beamed around the world by satellite, and songs are today routinely uploaded to YouTube and Youku. This is the first book-length account of North Korean music and dance in any language other than Korean. It is based on fieldwork, on interviews, and resources researched in private and public archives and libraries in North Korea, but also in South Korea, China, North America and Europe. It explores revolutionary songs written in the 1940s and pop songs from the 2010s, exploring in a critical but informed way not just songs, but also developments of Korean instruments, the creation of revolutionary operas that embed the state's ideology of juche "self-reliance", mass spectacles, dance and dance notation, and composers and compositions"-- Provided by publisher Famously reclusive and secretive, North Korea can be seen as a theatre that projects itself through music and performance. The first book-length account of North Korean music and dance in any language other than Korean, Songs for "Great Leaders" pulls back the curtain on this theatre for the first time.0Renowned ethnomusicologist Keith Howard moves from the first songs written in the northern part of the divided Korean peninsula in 1946 to the performances in February 2018 by a North Korean troupe visiting South Korea for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games. Through an exceptionally wide range of sources and a perspective of deep cultural competence, Howard explores old revolutionary songs and new pop songs, developments of Korean instruments, the creation of revolutionary operas, and mass spectacles, as well as dance and dance notation, and composers and compositions. The result is a nuanced and detailed account of how song, together with other music and dance production, forms the soundtrack to the theater of daily life, embedding messages that tell the official history, the exploits of leaders, and the socialist utopia yet-to-come. Based on fieldwork, interviews, and resources in private and public archives and libraries in North Korea, South Korea, China, North America and Europe, Songs for "Great Leaders" opens up the North Korean regime in a way never before attempted or possible