"Authentic Audience" inP’ansori, a Korean Storytelling Tradition

In labor and in leisure, the concept of p’an is an imagined frame of wholehearted participation, where "performance" is sublimated as a processual ritual of "flow." P’ansori, a storytelling tradition of folk origin, is a p’an whereby performer and audience engage in a mutually reflexive communion of performance and reception. Removed from its cultural context and designated as "national treasure," its theater assumes a ritual of tradition making.