▲ Part of the barrier-free video of 'Skapin' held by the National Theater Company


Recently, there is a movement to 'barrier-free' to increase accessibility for disabled audiences, centering on public theaters such as the National Theater Company, National Theater of Korea, and Jeongdong Theater.



Barrier-free refers to campaigns and policies implemented to remove physical or psychological barriers that impede the social life of the socially disadvantaged, such as the disabled and the elderly.

It is also commonly used to mean removing barriers to barriers. 



In the culture and art world, it refers to the provision of subtitles, sign language interpretation, and audio commentary in order to bridge the cultural gap between the disabled and non-disabled that occurs when cultural and artistic works made with audiovisual elements are unintentionally produced in a way that the visually impaired cannot enjoy. I did.



In the film industry, the 'Barrier-Free Film Festival' is already active and barrier-free practices such as providing subtitles and audio commentary at the Busan International Film Festival have been practiced.



The National Theater Company is providing Korean subtitles for some performances of the play 'Angels in America - Part Two: Perestroika', which opened on the 28th of last month.



In addition, the National Theater Company added sign language interpretation, audio commentary, and Korean subtitles to all episodes in the play 'Roadkill in the Theater' last year, which was based on the theme of the animal's right to life. and 'Scapin' (November), he announced that he plans to provide subtitles for relatively well-known works.



The National Theater of Korea also announced that, following the deployment of sign language interpreters for Dabinnao's 'Sori Drama Oki' performance last year, it plans to produce a sign language interpretation screen in the recorded video of this year's performance.

▲ Poster for 'A Tribe in the Name of Family'


However, there is still a long way to go before barrier-free culture is fully established in the theater world.



The play 'A Tribe in the Name of Family', which ended at the Jeongdong Theater on the 27th of last month, sent simultaneous subtitles for the hearing impaired for only about two weeks during the entire screening period.



This is because, despite the fact that the content of the play is a work that depicts the alienation experienced by the non-disabled family among the non-disabled family, the subtitles service did not have a subtitle system until the middle of the performance period, and the subtitle service was started only after receiving protests from the audience.



A barrier-free performance video production official said, "In the case of private production companies, it is difficult to conduct barrier-free performances or make related videos because of the cost burden. He explained that structural support is needed to create a cultural environment where people with disabilities can live together.



This is a 'news pick'.



(Photo = National Jeongdong Theater, National Theater Company YouTube)