Kut: Materials towards an interdisciplinary performance reflecting the encounter of Christianity and Buddhism in contemporary Korea

This paper includes the performance script and an extended commentary upon an interdisciplinary performance by writer-performer Michael Springate, developed in collaboration with Nathan Hesselink (cello and Korean percussion), Maki Nagisa (dancer-actor), Carolyn Combs (videographer), Ron Stewart (movement) and Kee Kook-seo (director). The performance, structured as a sonata, has four movements. The relationships between these individual movements and contemporary history are clarified, as are the influences of traditional Korean performance structures, in particular the p'ansori and the kut. Differing conceptions of self, reality and performance are defined and contrasted, and the effect of American Foreign Policy on those conceptions is also explored.