지역축제와 문화콘텐츠의 실현

Abstract

Festivals we meet by written materials or photos may be different from what we experience them at actual places. In the excitement we feel before arriving at the site, heat we face at the site, and impression we get after the festival, festival exists. It also reveals the characteristics of a festival. Local festivals, be they big or small, are the same. As a culture, festival has long been a lifestyle of human society. Like lifestyles which change with passing of time, festivals also change over time. While the 21st century is often called the age of culture, culture has never been excluded in human life. But, now, changes of the patterns of expressing culture have become more rapid than before. Here, the problem is how the creation of a culture derived from ‘what already exists’ can be guaranteed in real life. For example, let’s assume that we are devising ways to realize the aims of local festivals – keeping local identity and promoting local development. When it is linked with a local symbol represented by a specific site, such a problem is shown more clearly. Now, cultural development of a locality is realized through development of contents differentiated from other regions. And, the site we can identify it most clearly is the local festival. Local festival contains a feature of cultural contents. If the stories unique to the site are extracted, and storytelling is added, the festival becomes richer, and people –be local residents or visitors– will be more satisfied with it. The age of science and technology introduced local festivals as what do not fit their identities represented by cultures and histories. Economic aspects cannot be ignored in running good festivals. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore cultural values of them. Let’s cite the Cheongdo Bullfighting Festival. If we develop stories and make them into contents, they will become valuable tourist goods, and make people interested in and sympathetic with the festival.