17 Years of Continuing Popularity – Nanta Pounds On the World

The era of Hallyu, or Korean wave, has come. K-Pop has gone beyond idol music and swept the world with “Gangnam Style”. The thrilling rhythm and simple movement that could be easily imitated by anyone made the world dance. But 15 years before this “Psy Boom”, there was an original Hallyu that pounded on the world, Nanta.

Since its premiere in 1997 October, Nanta gathered the largest audience of Korean concert history in 2014 May – 9.51 million – and is expected to gather more than 10 million people in the upcoming concert in upcoming October. The standing concert will be held in Seoul Myungdong and Choongmuro and in Jejudo. Nanta has established itself as a must-see course for foreigners and is selling an average of 90% tickets even in the slump of concert industry.

Nanta portrays a kitchen preparing a reception while pressed in time. The three chefs are told to prepare a wedding party that wasn’t on schedule. In just an hour, they have to make a flawless reception involving Japchae, Injulmi, and cream cake, but a troublemaker chef joins them and the task goes out of hand. Can the four chefs finish the task in time? The audience cannot take their eyes off with half worrying, half anticipating.

The original name was “In the Kitchen”, but an interesting rumor says that a staff muttered, “they are battering” while watching the chefs pound on vegetables with knives. Then, the word battering was translated into the Korean word Nanta. Nanta is now recognized by the world stage. In the 1999 Edinburgh Festival Fringe of United Kingdom, it received the highest rating and was sold out. In September 2003, it became the first concert to perform in New York Broadway’s New Victory Theater and was praised by the audience. A half year later, as the first in Asia, it opened its own theater in off Broadway’s Minetta Lane Theater and stood side by side with the world’s most renowned masterpieces. Also performing in Middle East and Africa, it is now loved by people of 286 cities in 49 countries.

Nanta’s pounding has not ended yet. Nanta’s producer PMC Production established its own theater in Bangkok of Thailand last January. Not only is it popular among citizens of Bangkok, but also among tourists. The Thai government is rewarding institutional benefits to Nanta-designated theaters to promote tourism.

Nanta has been acclaimed by world-famous media like New York Times, CNN, and Guardian. How has Nanta fascinated the whole world? The answer lies in the Korean elements of the show. The sound of a lady rolling a wooden stick on a washboard, the sound of mother cutting food ingredient, the sound of hitting an alcohol-table with chopsticks, the sound of loud but cheerful Korean traditional percussion quartet. These are all traditional Korean sentiment and culture. Nanta is the product of integrating Korea’s unique rhythm and modern performance. It has also overcome the language barrier through its form of “non-language show”. It proves that anyone who thinks a show without dialogue would be boring is wrong. Its use of common tools such as knife and cutting board, the surprise traditional marriage and game of piling dumplings along with the audience, the fancy display of traditional dance and rhythm captivates anyone’s mind regardless of gender or nationality.

During its 17 years of performance, Nanta has used 294080 cucumbers and carrots each, 117632 onions, 1980 cutting boards, and 18333 knives. Every actor has to be trained six months to show off fancy knife skills. Nanta is now what it is due to years of hard work by actors and producers and countless props. It is still rewriting the history of Korean performance. It will keep pounding and pounding until it touches the hearts of 50 million of Korean and 7 billion of the world.

Translated by Changhun Lee

Changhun Lee is a student of Korean Minjok Leadership Academy.