This year’s Performing Arts Market in Seoul (PAMS) was held for five days from October 10^th to 14^th. The PAMS serves as a venue where world performing artists and producers share ideas, and discuss various aspects of the arts, for example, from inception to marketing. As before, the PAMS chose Asia as the focus region of this year, and held a variety of relevant secessions and programs. theApro reviews major programs of the PAMS 2011 and its trends of the past 7 years.

Trends of PAMS Choice of Past Seven Years
(Ⅰ) Theatre (Ⅱ) Dance (Ⅲ) Music (Ⅳ) Multidisciplinary

The quantitative and qualitative growth of multidisciplinary in PAMS Choice every year are worthy of close attention. While multidisciplinary is relevant to today''s trends of hybrid-like experimentation and new media art that stands out, it is also relevant to the desires of Korean performing arts community to plan and create works that are able to approach the global market beyond the barriers of language and culture.

In the multidisciplinary of PAMS Choice during the past seven years, a total of 19 artworks from 17 groups were selected and introduced. Since the art market has the feature and mission of selecting artworks that have the possibility of being performed overseas, though it''s hard to say that the selected works each year are the best and are the biggest issue of that year in the multidisciplinary, looking through the list of works from the past, it could be learned that the selected works show the main trend in this field. While the focus of selection were on works of free-genre and new media experiments for certain years, others were focused more on realistic selections that had commercial appeal and popular in the global market. The selections varied accordingly to the goal of the art market, whether it was for the potential of active distribution in the market or for the genre of cultural exchange that shows the trends of art for a country.

Contend with Experimentation and Originality

Though it is difficult to summarize the tendencies and features of the groups in multidisciplinary into a couple of categories, nonetheless, it could be roughly categorized into four major tendencies.

The first is the experimental works that are of free-genre and makes use of new media aggressively, and accounts for the most selected work. While there are groups mainly in the younger generation who have debuted growing in the fields of theater, dance, music and other traditional performing arts and expanding their field through interest and experimentation in other genres, there are groups who began their artistic experiences that are in completely different fields other than performing arts, such as painting, architecture, literature, and photography. Because of this, their works have been refreshing stimuli to the conventional works. Following are some of the works with this trend and, among these, some were made through collaboration with artists abroad: La Deux by the SORO Performance Unit, The Buddha My Body by Nottle Theatre Company, The Petal-Breaking Face by the Visual Theater Company CCOT, Reading the Shoes I by the Kim Yoon-Jin Dance Company, Alice by Total Theater Alice, 7 Ways and Oil Pressure Vibrator by Geum-hyung JEONG, tacit.perform[0] by Tacit Group, Fire Cliff by Minouk LIM[Who&Work]. Also, they came out of the theater space and have done site-specific experiments such as picking out and using public space like a street as their theater. These works are worthy of attention as they are experiments about the performing area as well as experiments about new methods of communicating with the audience.

7 Ways by Geum-hyung JEONG		tacit.perform[0] by Tacit Group

The second is the non-verbal performances such as puppetry, mime, physical theatre etc. In fact, though the mimes and puppetry could be considered as traditional performance genre than multidisciplinary, because of the reasoning that it is not of the mainstream genre, it is being introduced as multidisciplinary. Following works are of such genre: The mime Migrant Overtures by the theater group Inhyunin; the Cheonbyeon Salon(Riverside Salon) by the Doosan Art Center''s extreme concert composed of the popular trend in the 1930''s called Manyo(comical song genre that developed during the Japanese occupation, as funny songs containing jokes and humor); Orpheus and Handcart, overturned by Corporal Theater Momggol Physique which minimize literary text and narrative configuration and are based on the well-trained body of the performers instead. Meanwhile, there are some that are slightly different in performance context than the ones mentioned above. One of them, Clay Play for Children by the object theater artist Lee, Young-ran(Fox Rain Entertainment), is significant because it has pioneered the fields of children education play and especially the theatrical experience. In addition, the Wit & Beat by the Noridan that advocates eco-drama, is a work that should require attention in the creative process rather than the creativity of the performance, as it is a work based on strong educational context that tries to give job experience to the young through art.

The third are the performances with contents of traditional Korean culture that have been modernized in accordance with the global market such as the KARMA: Yin-Yang''s second edition by The Patron Company, and the Binari by the Dulsori art&culture. While planning the contents with the global market in mind starting from the production stage, especially in the case of Dulsori art&culture, it is engaged in quite an aggressive marketing by creating subsidiaries and etc. in England and the United States.

The fourth are of performances that are produced for popularity and strong commercial based on B-boy dance, martial arts, and percussion performances. Just like the contents of traditional Korean culture, they are targeted towards the global market from the production stage. While the Break Out by Sevensense Inc.. is representative out of the past selections, since it has the ability to plan itself, it is not actively selected or supported with the discretion that it can be self-circulated without an introduction to the art market. However, it is certain that it is showing a prominent activity in the current performing arts market.

Cheonbyeon Salon(Riverside Salon) by Doosan Art Center		Fire Cliff  by Minouk LIM

Read the Flow and Make Independent Judgements

It could be said that PAMS Choice have contributed the most in the field of multiple-genre than any other field in introducing the variety, dynamics, and the rich ideas and potentials of Korean performing arts scene. The practice and their works shown by the groups, and the individuality of the selected works from past seven years prove this. Nevertheless, now, the current issue in the method of annually introducing isolated local works is something that needs to be questioned.

When looking at all the works being performed throughout the global art centers today, one can recognize the fact that they have been created with the support of international art funds and festivals. The things that are greatly attributing to this phenomenon are the art market and the art managers personnel around the world. While the art market introduces and distributes the completed works, it is sometimes the driving force that creates collaboration and activity between artists abroad through the introduction of domestic artists and groups. Though the locality of the works are important, there is a need for proper introduction to the global art market for the artists and groups, and consistently introduce the progress of the works. There are some apparent difficulties in giving consistent attention to work activities and introductions of cultural context, artistic strength, and advantageous individual introductions that have deeper understandings and meaning. Also, there seems to be a need for long term introductions of works centered on a topic. To reveal the cultural significance and position within the international trend, there must be a topic or an issue that can penetrate the core. Because of this, it is very important to read the trend of art and independently criticize it with critical perspective for the Arts Management practitioners. Now, PAMS Choice is expected to make a new leap forward and create innovations.