PAMS Choice provides a selection of outstanding works chosen through a yearly competition, in order to help the Korean performing arts reach a global audience. The PAMS Choice selections enjoy official showcase presentations throughout PAMS 2012 and are the subject of intensive promotional efforts at various international performing arts markets, with support provided for airfare and transportation when pieces are invited for performance overseas (in conjunction with the Arts Council Korea), for the translation of captions, and for education and consultation toward developing strategies to reach audiences overseas.

A total of 117 works were selected for PAMS Choice performances between from 2005 to 2011. These performances have also been active abroad, with over 500 performances staged in around 60 countries all around the world through strategic overseas expansion support. For 2012, a total of thirteen works have been selected in the genres of theatre, dance, musical performance, and multidisciplinary work. Partial and full showcases will be taking place over the PAMS event period at locations such as the National Theater of Korea.

• <Death of a Salesman>, Theatre Group Seongbukdong Beedoolkee

  

  A tale of Willy's loneliness so full of energy it leaves audiences totally winded

  By taking apart and reassembling Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, this play exposes the deepest-lying truths from within the original work, recreating it in a new form that does justice to these fundamental truths. By reducing the final scene, in which Willy drives a car toward his imminent death, to the image of a father on a running machine, the production depicts Willy's entire life using a combination of narration and sensual, physical experience in the space of one moment that seems to last an eternity. The production was awarded the Dong-A Theatre Award for New Concept Theatre in 2011.

• <Hamlet>, Yohangza Theatre Company

  

  A version of Hamlet that uses traditional Korean gut ceremonies to achieve catharsis

  This version of Hamlet by Yohangza Theater Company, whose many previous productions have combined an East Asian image with a strongly experimental flavor, conveys all the anger and sadness of Shakespeare's classic work through powerful stage design and a beautiful mis-en-scene. Introducing the traditional Korean gut exorcism ceremony, the production creates a drama full of the conflict, confusion and tragedy of its vengeful, plotting characters. Against the background of a stage design that uses lines, colors and the beauty of empty space to convey a sophisticated sense of minimalism, Hamlet's anger and cold insanity at the truth of the destiny he faces reflect the inner workings of members of today's society.

• <UKCHUK-GA>, Pansori Project 'ZA'

  

  Pansori in tune with our times

  Inspired by Brecht's comedy Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder, Ukchuk-ga gives a dynamic depiction of war through the songs, expressions and gestures of a singer and a musician, while capturing the plight of people living tough lives in our society today. Seats at all of its performances at Uijeongbu Arts Center and LG Arts Center sold out in 2011, while a 2012 encore performance at LG Arts Center in 2012 also sold out two months in advance.

• <Passivity>, Dance Theater CHANG

  

  We live in a world where the strong devour the weak

  Featuring life-size manually-controlled puppets, Passivity uses the movements of puppets and real dancers to give a realistic depiction of contemporary social phenomena such as human aggression, the dominance of the strong, the violence of the world and the suffering of the weak. In 2010, Passivity won a special prize at the Arts Korea 21 International Choreographer Promoting Performance.

• <Balance and Imbalance>, Bereishit Dance Company (prev. PARK SOON HO Dance Company)

  

  The emptiness at the heart of flickering movement; the silence discovered within space

  The body, a vehicle for feeling, creates sound; sound, conversely, is responds to the body. The mutual communication of sounds and gestures, humans' basic means of expressing emotion, leads to a buildup of both harmonious and unbalanced emotional exchange, and the discovery of "excitement" as a natural by-product of this. Since its debut at the International Contemporary Dance Conference & Performance Festival in Poland in 2011, Balance and Imbalance has won choreopgraphy awards from The Korean Dance Researchers and Critics Association and ChangMu Arts Center, and is due to be performed at Urban Moves International Dance Festival in the UK in 2012 and tour Europe in 2013.

• <Women on the Road>, Pu-Luem YOUN project group

  

  Physical messages convey the epitome of femininity

  Women on the Road depicts the recognition of and achievement of harmony among the numerous differences encountered in various situations by using esthetic movements that maximize femininity. Having won awards at Dance Vision in 2012 and SCF Grand Prix in 2011, Women on the Road continues to be actively performed in a wide variety of venues.

• <Cheop Cheop>, Be Being

  

  Traditional court music reinterpreted through new forms and musical grammar

  In accordance with Be Being's traditional modus operandi, Cheop Cheop was created by researching specially selected music and gasa poems, dismantling their musical structure, then recreating it. Departing from traditional court music, it aims to create a comprehensive style incorporating instrumental music, song and dance, and use visual media such as imagery and stage art to create a new court music using Be Being's own unique style.

• <Timeless Sound>, Ensemble SINAWI

  

  Korean traditional music still evolving in the 21st century

  "Sinawi" is improvised music played based on a certain rhythm. Ensemble Sinawi recreates the charm and depth of Korean traditional music in the musical language of the 21st century. Sinawi performs traditional compositions that lay improvised melodies over indigenous Korean rhythms, and living, breathing traditional music that highlights traditional forms such as pansori, designated an item of Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO, as contemporary genres.

• <Sympathy>, World Music Ensemble [e-do]

  

  Outstanding musicianship, creative sound
  Korean world music that brings back to life the roots of tradition

  World music ensemble Ido embraces a variety of musical grammars, including jazz, Indian music and rock, played on a base of Korean traditional music. Yido's musicians experiment constantly with new instruments and attempt organic fusion with other musical genres. Its performances explore new directions for the development of contemporary Korean music. Sinawi was selected to appear at Lowell Folk Festival in the United States and Ulsan World Music Festival in Korea in 2010.

• <Jambinai>, Jambinai

  

  Music that exists everywhere but belongs nowhere

  After winning a special rookie of the year award from broadcaster EBS in 2011, Jambinai has performed at a wide variety of venues, from Doosan Art Center to Pentaport Rock Festival. The band creates a new form of music that mixes free jazz, post-rock and avant-garde, played on Korean traditional instruments like the haegeum, the piri and the geomungo, and electric guitars and electronics. Their intense, explosive performances have won them devoted fans on Hongdae's indie scene, while their albums are sold in Japan, Europe and all over the world.

• <Stepmemories: Return of the Oppressed>, greenpig

  

  In war, what you remember is not what you remember

  Stepmemories tells the stories of people that are forgotten within the grand narrative of war. Through testimonies with suppressed memories, they face historical facts and examine the possibility of dialogue between victims and aggressors, or with society. The result is a combination of genres including acting, music, imagery and art. Stepmemories has been invited to Festival Tokyo in November 2012.

• <A Typist>, A Typist

  

  New messages born of the sounds produced by writing

  A Typist shows the possibility of another method of production whereby the act of writing, using the sounds of a typewriter and acoustic technology, becomes musical, or perhaps unmusical, works. Ryu Han-gil, who has been working on sound based upon the vibrations emitted by objects, has teamed up with three writers to question our values regarding the existing genres of music, literature and art through writing produced through a process of unpredictable music and music creation.

• Street Theater <Lure Me, Fisherman>, The Gwangdae - Korean Traditional Performing Arts Troupe

  

  A bitter portrait of ourselves, hidden beneath a comic veneer.
  Human fishing, in the street.

  Lure Me, Fisherman is a black comedy that provides an acerbic illustration of contemporary city dwellers as they become increasingly twisted through the pursuit of illusory goals, using a combination of comic gestures, games, the satircial humor of Korean traditional mask dances and song. Through the street farce Lure Me, Fisherman, The Gwangdae, a young and original theater group that consists traditional theater specialists and students of renowned traditional entertainer Go Seong-o, gives an acclaimed and lively sublimation of the problems of contemporary society through communal games.