MAEDEUP: WEAVING SHIN YUN-BOK to Open at La MaMa

At a moment of growing global interest in Korean culture, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club will present maedeup: Weaving Shin Yun-bok, a live, non-verbal performance created by the Korean company kNOT. A production of the Seoul Institute of the Arts, the work brings a distinctly contemporary sensibility to the paintings of Shin Yun-bok, an 18th-century Korean painter renowned for his portrayals of women and everyday life. Conceived and directed by Ji-young Kim, performances run September 24–27 at La MaMa's The Downstairs. All performances are free with RSVP.

Shin Yun-bok captured an intimate and colorful side of Korean society: lovers meeting secretly under the moon, women bathing and dressing by a stream, and musicians and dancers performing. maedeup revisits this world through the sensibilities of 2026, imagining the relationships and stories within and between the paintings. Love, jealousy, desire, and curiosity emerge from centuries-old images, bringing the people in Shin's paintings unexpectedly close to the present.

The performance unfolds entirely without spoken text. Each painting is reimagined through a different live visual medium, including shadow play, colored sand, marbling, collage, and ink, unfolding one by one like the pages of a picture book. Live Foley gives sound to the world of the paintings, while performers create stories through movement and tableau. Live camera work captures the three-dimensional bodies onstage and transforms them back into two-dimensional images, allowing the performance to move continuously between painting and live action.

Named after the Korean word for 'knot,' maedeup weaves together image, movement, sound, and story. Drawing on Korean cultural heritage while speaking in a contemporary performance language, the work reflects the interdisciplinary practice of the Seoul Institute of the Arts, bringing together theatre, dance, music, sound, visual art, photography, and live media.

Director Ji-young Kim says, 'A painting holds much more than what is visible. It contains sound, texture, movement, relationships, and traces of stories beyond the frame. We begin by looking closely at what the image suggests, then translate those discoveries into bodies, sound, and movement. That is where a centuries-old painting can become contemporary.'

The production draws on works in the collection of the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation, including paintings from Shin Yun-bok's Album of Genre Paintings, designated National Treasure No. 135, as well as his celebrated Portrait of a Beauty. The production is supported by the Kansong Art and Culture Foundation and the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE).

The relationship between the Seoul Institute of the Arts and La MaMa dates back to 1974, marking more than five decades of artistic exchange. Over the years, the two institutions have collaborated through performances, workshops, artist exchanges, and educational programs. Their partnership was formalized in 2008 and led to the joint founding of CultureHub in 2009. More than fifty years later, maedeup: Weaving Shin Yun-bok continues this history on the La MaMa stage, bringing a new generation of Korean artists into an artistic and cultural exchange that began in 1974.

Don't Miss a Off-Broadway News Story
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...