-Online forum for experts to find a model for Asian puppet theater school.

ㅁ Unima Korea (President Jungmi Lim) is hosting an online forum to invite relevant organizations and performance experts in Korea to participate in the establishment of Asia's first puppet theater-specific startup support center (tentatively named Asian Puppet Theater School) in Chuncheon.

ㅁ The forum, "Discovering a Model for an Asian Puppet Theater School," will begin online at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 19, and will examine the current situation of the puppet theater scene at home and abroad, and will also explore the sustainability of the organization through the examples of similar institutions in Korea.

ㅁ The first part of the forum will propose a model for a puppet theater school through the examples of similar institutions, and the second part will explore ways to revitalize and expand puppet theater through puppet theater and genre criticism from the perspective of performance critics.

ㅿ Part 1- Yoo Jinwoo, representative of Palm Theater / Kim Tae-yong, representative of the theater company Sulemudae / Kim Hong-chun, team leader of the Seoul Street Art Creation Center, Seoul Arts Foundation / Kim Hong-chun, team leader of the Korean National Film Academy, Korea Film Council

ㅿ Part 2 - Theater Critic Eom Yeon-hee / Performance Columnist Kim Il-song / Theater Critic Kim Min-kwan / Dance Critic Kim Nam-soo

ㅁ The city of Chuncheon, which has built a reputation as a city of cultural festivals such as the Chuncheon Puppet Festival, Chuncheon Mime Festival, Chuncheon Art Festival, and Chuncheon Theater Festival, is expected to open the Puppet Theater Specialized Entrepreneurship Center in 2022, which will be the first performing arts center in Korea that combines general basic arts education and civic arts education, rather than a space limited to puppeteers. The center is expected to discover and cultivate young artists, retrain professionals focused on the creative process, as well as systematically conduct general civic arts education activities with leading domestic and foreign experts.

- Lim Jeong-mi, President of Unima Korea, which is hosting the forum, said that through the center, puppet theater will transcend the limitations of children's theater and become a genre of art that everyone can enjoy, and furthermore, it will produce professional puppeteers who are not lagging behind in the global puppet theater world and create Chuncheon, a transitional cultural city specializing in puppetry, together.

ㅁ UNIMA Korea, the Korean branch of the International Puppet Association (UNIMA), is located in Chuncheon Puppet Theater and plans to strengthen network activation through exchanges with more than 100 member countries around the world to spread the characteristics and strengths of Chuncheon and Korean puppet theater, and to develop into a global puppet theater city.

ㅁ The forum will be available for anyone to watch through the online channel YouTube and will receive ideas for the establishment of the school through real-time comments.