[Opinion] Jump

The Korean non-verbal performance ‘Jump’ is a hit in London. When the performance ended, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla Parker Bowles came to the stage and shook hands with all the actors, saying, “It was fantastic and we really enjoyed watching it.” Jump easily overcomes the downside of non-verbal performances by marrying Oriental martial arts such as Taekwondo and Kung Fu with a story of a family that practices martial arts.

400,000 people have seen it since 2003 when it was first performed. September of 2006 saw the establishment of a theater for Jump performances in Jongno 2-ga in Seoul. The non-verbal performance drew a lot of overseas fans. It drew 90,000-plus audiences over its 120 showings in 8 countries, including Israel, China, Greece, Spain, and India. It was named one of the “best 5” performances at the 2005 and 2006 Edinburgh International Festival. In 2007, it is planned to make inroads into the 2 centers of the world’s performing arts, London’s West End and New York’s Broadway.

Even though the Korean Wave, the popularity of Korean pop culture, is on the rise these days, it sure takes more than a handful of Korean stars to perpetuate the Wave: it takes quality content to keep it going. The success of Korean drama ‘Daejanggeum’ (aka ‘Jewel in the palace’) was possible because of the great star Lee Yeong-ae and Kim Yeong-hyeon, the dramatist who is well-versed in literature, history and philosophy. Winning strategy also plays an important role in making a performance a success as shown in the case of Kim Gyeong-hoon, the producer of Jump. He changed the name of the performance from ‘An Impossible Family’ to ‘Jump’ before taking it to the overseas markets.

The cultural industry is a leading future-oriented industry. In 1992, Jurassic Park raked in $850 million in sales, equivalent to 1.5 million units of Hyundai Motor. In the same year, Hyundai Motor Company actually exported 640,000 cars, less than half that number. The Korean economy is moving toward a high value-added one. However, Korea’s culture-entertainment account was in the red as of October 2006. Service sectors related to quality of life such as culture, leisure, medicine, education as well as finance, human resources, information and consulting sectors should be urgently upgraded.