INTERVIEW Lee Ja-ram brings pansori back to its roots by modernizing

Pansori singer Lee Ja-ram / Courtesy of artist

By Park Jin-hai

• Published May 18, 2025 8:00 AM KST
• Updated May 22, 2025 11:24 AM KST

Virtuoso performer modernizes Korea's traditional narrative music

"Here we are now, in the snowy fields of Russia, where it is minus 28 degrees Celsius."

With just this one line from Korea’s leading pansori (Korean narrative music) performer Lee Ja-ram, the audience suddenly found themselves transported to the harsh Russian winter, standing upon a vast snowy plain. She repeatedly sang out "shooong," mimicking the sound of wind with her mouth while waving her fan, and evoking the sound of a horse with "hiiing" ( "neigh" in English) as she used both hands to mimic a horse walking across a snowfield.

Her latest work, "Snow, Snow, Snow," staged at LG Arts Center from April 7 to 13, marked her long-awaited return to the pansori stage with a new creation — her first original piece in five years.

A pansori reinterpretation of Leo Tolstoy’s short story "Master and Man," the production tells the story of merchant Vasily and peasant worker Nikita, who set out to buy a forest during Russia’s brutal winter and lose their way in a snowstorm using pansori, traditionally performed by a solo singer playing all the characters, accompanied only by a drummer. The 45-year-old brings to life Vasily, his wife Anastasia and Nikita, shifting seamlessly between characters in this one-person performance.

Though its brief Seoul run is over, "Snow, Snow, Snow" will travel to Haneulyeon Theatre in the Busan Cinema Center on June 14 and 15, where the stage will transform into the blizzard-swept Russian snowfields of 1879.

After first encountering pansori at the age of 10 and with the recommendation of a pansori teacher who recognized her talent early on, Lee studied the traditional repertoire of five existing pansori performances under several National Intangible Cultural Heritage holders for the art.

Starting with "Sacheon-ga" in 2007, her adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's "The Good Person of Szechwan," she has been active in creating original works, telling the stories she wants to share with the world through the medium of pansori.

“In those days, people were shocked to see a young pansori singer alone on stage performing dozens of roles with just her voice. When you show something on stage that makes people think, ‘Is that even humanly possible?’ that’s when the audience feels catharsis,” Lee said in a recent interview with The Korea Times at a cafe in Seoul.

“When I first created 'Sacheon-ga,' there was no one else in Korea making original, contemporary pansori like I was. I poured everything I could into it — every aspect of pansori, from instruments to lighting, costumes and stage design,” she said, adding that she wanted to "throw a splash of cold water" on people’s perceptions of pansori.

"I wanted to show that pansori is a genre that can be truly cool and impressive, so I went a bit overboard, gave it my all. And it worked — the public’s attention poured in.”

Lee became the youngest person to sing the entire “Chunhyang-ga” over the course of eight straight hours when she was 19 — a feat listed in the Guinness World Records — and captivated audiences by writing, composing and performing multiple roles herself as a pansori singer. The National Intangible Cultural Heritage certified trainee caused a major stir in the performing arts scene when her original works first debuted.

In 2010, she won the Best Actress Award at the Kontakt International Theatre Festival in Poland for her performance in "Sacheon-ga."

Following that, Lee achieved unprecedented success with "Ukchuk-ga," her pansori rendition of Brecht’s "Mother Courage and Her Children," selling out every seat and receiving standing ovations at every show in its 2011 premiere. This led to invitations for performances both in Korea and abroad, and she has grown into a leading artist representing Korean theatrical and musical culture.

Essence of pansori

With "Sacheon-ga" and "Ukchuk-ga," she experimented musically with every possible arrangement. Since then, however, Lee moved closer to what she feels is the essence of pansori.

"I wanted to tell everyone that traditional pansori is originally performed with one singer. You yourself actually become the orchestra. Your body is the lighting, your body is the costume and you don’t need anything else. It took me 10 years to finally arrive at this point," she said.

Although a longtime veteran of the stage, she said, “Every time I go on stage, I get so nervous I want to run away, but I leave it up to the stage and step onto it as if I’m bungee jumping.” She added that she feels truly happy when she is able to connect emotionally with the audience during a performance.

“During the performance of 'Snow, Snow, Snow,' the audience watched as if they were at a local market, just enjoying the show. That was so fascinating to me as well. People seemed more relaxed and expressive and even without prompting them to shout out traditional exclamations like ‘eolssigu,’ (an expression of anticipation, pleasure and encouragement from an audience) they just naturally expressed their feelings as if they were watching a TV show,” she said.

Lee believes that the popularity of pansori lies in telling the stories that people of the time need.

“When Vasily keeps making wrong choices for the sake of money, the audience watching thinks, ‘Please, stop,’ or they think of someone around them or even themselves. If the value of pansori were just about technical virtuosity or the novelty of one person performing for a long time, it would be no different from a circus," she said.

"But if there’s a reason people overseas like my work and keep coming back, I think it’s the drama. Just as [Henrik Ibsen's 1891 play] ‘Hedda Gabler’ is currently being staged by two different productions in Seoul, it shows how stories that are needed in this era continue to become theater."

Singing IU's song with Joseon skills

Lee's contemporary pieces are bringing pansori back to the role it once played in the 1392-1910 Joseon Dynasty — an art form rooted in the lives of everyday people.

She explained that over the course of the 20th century, pansori was elevated to a high-class art, repositioned similarly to elite classical music. What Lee is trying to do is to bring it back to the people of today, much like K-pop singer IU’s “Through the Night” is for today’s listeners.

“Originally, pansori was created when one singer would perform ‘Simcheongga,’ then another would add a new section and other singers would contribute with wild, made up stories about their neighbors or whatever came to mind. But, later it became distanced from the public and the pansori I learned as a child was truly elite and classical — hard for anyone to perform, with small audiences who had to be connoisseurs to appreciate it," she said.

"Through my performance, I want to say that although the technique itself is extraordinary — something handed down to me from the Joseon era and not easily acquired by just anyone — it is not difficult music. With the skills I’ve gained over 30 years, I’ll sing you ‘Through the Night.’" she said.

"Since how I live is different from the past, ultimately, this contemporary body trains in old techniques and then adapts them to the present era. On top of that, I add something of my own to tell my own story. That’s exactly what pansori singers did in the Joseon era.”

Knowing that walking the path of a pansori singer is an incredibly difficult journey and that people can’t achieve this level of skill while enjoying all the comforts of life, Lee shared her fear that the genre of pansori could gradually disappear. That’s why she wants to continue exploring and experimenting with pansori to push the form even further.

“It still feels boundless and vast. The ocean of pansori is always amazing — practicing the tradition always brings new surprises. It’s truly an incredible art form. I feel like even if I dig into it for the rest of my life, I’ll never fully understand it. What I want to do for the rest of my life is to keep delving deeper and deeper into pansori,” she said.

Lee says that when experiencing pansori, it’s best not to do so through YouTube or audio recordings, but to experience it live.

“I hope you can experience the pansori singer right in front of you. That’s because pansori is, more than any other art form, an art of time and space. There’s a unique synergy that only happens when you are present in that moment and space together. So if you want to experience pansori, I hope you’ll go wherever a pansori singer is performing and see it for yourself."