By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
The National Theater of Korea will open the Performing Arts Museum, the first of its kind in the country, next week.
The need for the museum has been discussed to better preserve, collect and exhibit performing arts materials as its genres are intangible and ephemeral once the curtain has been drawn.
The museum collects related materials and excavates lost or dispersed information from all areas of the performing arts to revive their meaning and significance.
Among others, all the museum's data and records will be digitalized and forwarded to cultural organizations worldwide. It also aims to expand its role as a"Global Digital Museum" and "Modern Cultural Complex" by storing all information in digital format so that its archive can be searched from local partnered libraries and museums in the world.
To establish the museum, the theater has renovated the Byeol Studio into the museum space.
The museum is located on three floors spanning 2,851 square meters and consists of the special and permanent exhibition halls, archive room, storage house and educational room.
The permanent exhibition hall is divided into chronicled and theme-based sections. The chronicled exhibition section displays the history of Korean performing arts, including that of the national theater. It also chronicles Korean drama, dances, traditional opera and other traditional musical genres.
The theme-based exhibition section showcases the stage costumes, the artists' rooms, stage designs and props.
The theater will make the permanent exhibition hall public on Dec. 23 and open other facilities earlier next year.
The museum holds about 100,000 performing arts items and 10,000 donated artifacts that were recently received through the theater's campaign.
Of those, the museum will showcase 300 pieces in the opening exhibition. Visitors can get more information about Korea's performing arts history and the exhibits through installed touch screens.
"The museum started collecting artifacts and receiving donations a long time ago to establish the Performing Arts Museum. The museum will play a pivotal role in showing the current status of the Korean performing arts and developing it as a storage house for creativity," the museum said.
The museum will hold its opening ceremony on Dec. 23. For more information, call (02) 2280-4115. Admission is free.