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An Empirical Reconsidering the Lives and Art of Hereditary Performers: A Review of Lee Gyeong-yeop’s Mudang and Performers (Yeoksagonggan, 2025)

Song Sora 1

1고려대학교

Irregular Papers

ABSTRACT

This article reviews Lee Gyeong-yeop’s Mudang and Performers (Yeoksagonggan, 2025), examining the significance of the author’s effort to reposition hereditary mudang communities and hereditary performers as central subjects in the history of Korean traditional performing arts, while also considering the issues that remain for further study. In particular, this review focuses on two points. First, the book does not confine mudang and hereditary mudang communities to the conventional categories of ritual specialists or socially despised groups; rather, it reconstructs them as multilayered historical actors by taking into account perceptions of status, public organizations, social attitudes, and their diverse responses to such conditions. Second, through its analysis of the modern experiences of hereditary performers, performer networks, and their composite artistic practices, the book persuasively demonstrates that tradition and cultural heritage are not fixed survivals of an original form, but historical products continually reconstituted through the practices of hereditary performers. At the same time, the book’s major cases largely rely on particular regions, lineages, and figures for whom relatively rich materials are available, which means that the extent to which its arguments may be generalized still requires further examination. For example, it remains necessary to ask to what degree cases such as the family of Bak Jin-myeong, the Yeosu Akgongcheong, and Jo Ung-seok represent the broader conditions of hereditary mudang communities in late Joseon and modern Korea, and to what extent striking figures such as Gang Jun-seop and Jang Wol-jung-seon can stand for hereditary performers in general. These questions call for regional and chronological comparison, as well as further investigation of lesser-known figures. In addition, an important task for future research will be to explore how these discussions may be extended to the contemporary transmission of tradition within the systems of intangible heritage and the environment of digital media. Even so, this book deserves high praise for broadening the horizon of related scholarship by illuminating the lives and artistic worlds of hereditary performers in a multidimensional way. It is a work that merits close attention not only from scholars of Korean shamanism but also from researchers interested in traditional performing arts and historical folklore more broadly.

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