Chaeyoung Lee | The Politics of Yesultan: An Entangled Performance Network and the Cultural Labor of North Korean Defector Musicians in South Korea

Korea Colloquium

Chaeyoung Lee
Korea Foundation-Korea Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University

Chaeyoung Lee is a Korea Foundation–Korea Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University and received her Ph.D. in Musicology and Ethnomusicology from Boston University. Her research focuses on the cultural Cold War in Korea, sonic and aesthetic divergence, and the politics of freedom in South Korean capitalism. Her current book project, Retuning for “Freedom”: Exploring the Music-Making of North Korean Defectors in South Korean Capitalism, draws on ethnography, historical research, and music analysis to examine how defector musicians’ cultural labor is mobilized to promote idealized narratives of reunification and freedom. Her work highlights both the freedoms and constraints these musicians face within neoliberal and state-sponsored frameworks, tracing their transitions into roles as gig workers, media figures, and government-promoted national heroes whose staged performances integrate cultural elements from both Koreas. Dr. Lee is also a performer-scholar of traditional Korean music, specializing in classical singing and the geomungo (six-string zither) performance, and is actively engaged in research, teaching, performance, and community-based cultural work.

Chaired by Nicholas Harkness, Modern Korean Economy and Society Professor of Anthropology; Director, Korea Institute, Harvard University

Abstract:
This seminar examines how crossing the border between the two Koreas transforms the socio-musical lives of North Korean defectors as they enter South Korea’s so-called “free world.” In particular, I focus on Yesultan (예술단)—multi-genre performing arts troupes strongly associated with North Korea and reconstituted by defectors in the South. I argue that Yesultan is not merely a performance format, but a form of cultural labor mobilized to promote government-sponsored narratives that frame South Korea as free, modern, and culturally superior, while also sustaining nostalgic imaginaries of a once “undivided Korea.” On Yesultan stages, defector performers are celebrated as national heroes—frequently portrayed as “freedom seekers” fleeing an oppressive regime and as “early unifiers” symbolically reconciling the two Koreas through performance. In practice, however, their value comes not from artistic demand or professional recognition but from political and symbolic expectations. Most of their work takes place within government-supported programs, media productions, and institutional events, revealing a gap between the idealized image of freedom they represent and the limited control they have over their actual working and performing lives. At the same time, Yesultan functions as a labor network through which defectors secure livelihoods by circulating across multiple venues, often without stable institutional affiliation, individual recognition, and public identification. Rather than forming fixed ensembles, performers move fluidly among groups, sharing repertoires in response to limited opportunities and the precarity of gig-based cultural work. I analyze the shared sonic markers of North Korean identity that structure Yesultan performances, including saenghwal kayo (생활가요, North Korean “everyday” songs), Munhwaŏ (문화어, Cultured Language), Juche-ch’angbŏp (주체창법), and emblematic instruments such as the accordion and the sohaegŭm (소해금). Combined with South Korean musical elements such as trot songs and adapted vocal styles, these features become packaged into a standardized form of “North Korean defector performing arts” that meets audience expectations while reproducing familiar—and often disrespectful—representations of “North Koreanness.” By framing Yesultan as both an artistic formation and a labor system, this seminar reveals how “freedom” is staged through performance and how defectors navigate a cultural economy that celebrates them symbolically as living icons of freedom and reunification, even as they remain structurally marginalized and confined to narrowly defined roles.

Generously supported by the Young-Chul Min Memorial Fund at the Korea Institute, Harvard University