This study aims at analyzing how Korean traditional folk drama has survived and what the aesthetic characteristics are through “Keo-ri gut(거리굿)”, which is shaman drama performed in “Pyul-shin gut(별신 굿; village exorcism)” at east coast, Korea. The “Keo-ri gut” has been spontaneously transmitted to the current society with a great deal of support of ordinary people. This study tries to figure out what the resource is to make the gut still alive.
From this study, I find that the “Keo-ri gut” has the very inner quality to survive until the current time period. The “Keo-ri gut” has realized the fun as well as significance as a ‘play/ritual’ which resolves pain and suffering of ordinary people who take part in the gut through wit and joy. The “Keo-ri gut” has got the dramatic effect by setting the place of performance as the place of the drama. In the “Keo-ri gut” everybody including the performer(shaman), spectators, and various spirits communicates very freely and comes to being together, which realizes the joy as a play and the significance as a ritual.
Self-devaluation by the performer, mocking of spectators, and the aesthetics of the inversion where the current social order is reversed function as achieving the unity beyond the barriers between people, and between the spirit and people. For this purpose, the narrative method in the performance is adopted, which results in heightening the joy of the play.
This aesthetics of the play has caused young students who just want to watch the “gut(굿, exorcism)” to participate in the play, which also results in making the “gut” not makeshift but natural. This is a clear example to show how the Korean traditional folk drama can survive beyond the limit of time and space.
In conclusion, this researcher can say that the aesthetics of the Korean traditional fork drama which the “Keo-ri gut” clearly shows can be fully applied to that of the present and the future.