Korea’s popular non-verbal musical Nanta, which is known as Cookin’ in English is the first Korean musical to make it’s debut on New York’s famed Broadway. The stage show will open at the New Victory Theater in the center of Broadway and is slated to run from March 22 to April 25, 2002. The theater has agreed to consider extending the show’s run after evaluating audience response to the performance.

Slightly reminiscent of other American non-verbal performances such as Stomp or Tap Dogs, Nanta literally means “to punch recklessly” and was designed to create a new version of Samulnori, a traditional high-energy, visual Korean percussion performance. Replacing the usual Korean drums and gongs, the Nanta performers use typical kitchen instruments such as pots and pans, broom and mops, knives and cutting boards to create the rhythmic tones. The premise of Nanta is that of four chefs who frantically prepare for a wedding feast, but keep getting sidetracked as they perform toe-tapping rhythms on their equipment.

Nanta first broke onto the scene in Seoul in 1997, where it was received with rave reviews. The show continues to open to sold-out audiences in it’s own 300-seat theater in central Seoul. Since then the show has toured abroad to rave reviews, appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1999, as well as a European tour to Austria, Britain, Germany and Ireland in 2000. Nanta is currently scheduled to perform in German this October and is planning its first American tour in November. For more information about Nanta, visit their internet site at www.nanta.co.kr.