Imaginary Folk Music: Investigating Unsuk Chin’s Gougalōn (2009/2012) through Cumulative Intercultural Analysis

Unsuk Chin's Gougaln for Ensemble (2009/2012) presents mock recreations of elements from Korean folk culture in what she calls "imaginary folk music."This composition, countering Orientalist stereotypes, offers an ideal example for both Yayoi Uno Everett's (2021a) concept of intercultural analysis and what I call cumulative intercultural analysis.While Everett highlights the benefit of using both conventional and counter-conventional frameworks in analyzing East Asian contemporary music, I focus on the advantages of developing an accumulation of conventional and counter-conventional frameworks.Using the Ghost Leg, a visualization tool originating in traditional East Asian diagrams, I apply a cumulative intercultural analysis to the three movements of Gougaln, through which I account for Chin's imaginary folk music.First, I introduce intercultural analysis as proposed by Everett and modified in my research.Next, I explain the meaning of imaginary folk music in Gougaln.Lastly, my examination of the piece shows how imaginary folk music runs throughout the composition and continues evolving in later movements.Starting from movement V, "Circulus vitiosos-Dance around the Shacks," I incorporate the concept of search-and-graft to clarify the imaginary folk quality of the movement.I then reframe search-and-graft for understanding movement III, "The Grinning Fortune Teller with the False Teeth," and its imaginary folk quality.Finally, making another methodological shift to bricolage, I examine movement I, "Prologue-Dramatic Opening of the Curtain," and consider how it initiates Chin's exploration of imaginary folk music and foreshadows movements III and V.