Talchum

Talchum
A mask dance in South Korea
Korean name
Hangul	탈춤
Revised Romanization	talchum
McCune–Reischauer	t'alch'um

Talchum (Korean: 탈춤) is a Korean dance performed while wearing a mask, and often involves singing and dancing.

Although the term talchum is usually taken to mean all mask dance dramas by most Koreans, it is strictly speaking a regional term originally only applied to dances of Hwanghae Province in present-day North Korea. Dances from the Seoul or Gyeonggi province region are known as sandae noli, whereas dances from the southern coast are known as yayu (야유), which means "field play", or Obangsinjang, which means "dance of five gods". However, Talchum is nowadays accepted as a general term for mask dance drama.^[1]

The dances also feature drama and story, as masked characters portray people, animals, and even supernatural beings. These folk dramas often reflected the frustrations felt by the lower classes towards the elite yangban.