연극 아카이브특성 및 현황 연구

Abstract

Culture and arts are coming under spotlight more and more these days as new sources of the culture industry develop and transcend the purely artistic level. However, for the culture industry to make advances, cultural content development is a must. At the same time, the creation of arts archives is emerging as a fundamental issue in the cultural content debate. Behind current trends, there is the fact that cultural content development for the creation of new added value tends to be focused on valuable art objects. Theater archives, on the other hand, refer to materials produced during theater activities, since theater is three-dimensional art usually performed on a stage. Therefore, theater archives include various materials ranging from books and printed materials to sheet music, audio recordings, photos, video recordings, stage props and sets, costumes, and miniatures. The ratio of printed materials to other archived theater objects is not very high. The importance of preserving theater records and materials has always been recognized. However, despite their significance, they are difficult to collect, preserve and utilize in a short period of time. And it costs a great deal to maintain such an archive as well. Furthermore, one of the characteristics of archives is that they are non-marketable, and do not generate any economic benefits. Given this set of conditions, it is realistic to say that building up theater archives is not an easy thing to do. The Arco Arts Library & Information Center, operated under the Korean Arts Council is the only public art library in Korea today, possessing about 250,000 items. However the National Theater of Korea is set to establish a “Museum of the Performing Arts” in 2008. In the meantime though, it is hard to find any local public organizations independently running arts libraries. But in spite of these limitations, the awareness of arts archives among public agencies has been spreading fast recently. Private museums tend to be operated based on donations from scholars and the lifetime collections of artists. Some individuals establish and run museums by themselves. However, it is a common problem for the operating costs of a museum to be so high that they go beyond the individuals’ capability to cover them. The high cost issue has been pointed out as an ongoingproblem for some time. When it comes to the status of private theatrical company’s theater archives, the situation is very poor indeed. It is even safe to say that there are almost no theatrical companies managing their archives properly. One cannot emphasize too much the importance and necessity of theater materials. Above all things, the limits of time and space arecritical factors in the theater. For this reason, without consciously accumulating materials, it is hard to remember past results on which to build and improve, and to reach for new heights. Culturally advanced countries have already grasped the importance of archiving and have set up institutional tools in order to spearhead their movements in the gear up of the era of culture. Therefore the necessity of systematically collecting, preserving, managing and utilizing art materials at the national level is becoming more important than ever before.