Korea Lives!

The women who led the independence protests from inside prison!

Synopsis

On 1 March 1919, the independence cries of the March First Movement echo across Korea, and a teacher, a seamstress, a farm wife, a pickpocket and a schoolgirl end up together in Cell 8 of the women’s prison. In a prison where everything is controlled and inhuman punishment never stops, they keep resisting in their own ways — and begin planning a new protest that will engulf the entire prison. Will the second in-prison independence protest, on the movement’s first anniversary, succeed?

This production is a dramatic reimagining based on real people.

About the production

The song of Cell 8, as an original musical Independence activists Eo Yun-hui, Im Myeong-ae, Shim Myeong-cheol and Yu Gwan-sun were imprisoned together in Cell 8 of the women’s prison after the 1919 March First Movement. Never yielding, they turned their cell into a “headquarters of resistance.” Before the movement they were someone’s mother, wife, daughter — and here their fight for a new world begins again.

Forgotten, but unforgettable The musical reconstructs the stories of real women who led the independence movement: Eo Yun-hui, dormitory supervisor at Hosudon Girls’ School; Im Myeong-ae, an ordinary farm wife; Shim Myeong-cheol, a visually impaired woman; and the student Yu Gwan-sun. We look again at lives long overlooked and listen to the world they dreamed of.

“Korea Lives!” — with live rock The song Korea Lives!, made famous by musicians including Jung Jae-il, Park Jung-hyun and Ahn Ye-eun, is reborn as moving, sing-along rock, its emotion surging as deep performances meet live music.

“Korea Lives!” is a song sung by seven women independence activists in Cell 8 of Seodaemun Prison; only its lyrics survive, passed down by their descendants.

Guro’s own trusted company In its second year as resident company of the Guro Cultural Foundation, Arirang first met Guro audiences with The Tale of the White Circle in 2016, followed by Gapdol and Gapsun, Our Neighbourhood Dokkaebi and The Kkokko Family — and returns this winter with the new Korea Lives!