Pansori is a genre of Korean music. It is a vocal and percussional music performed by one soriggun(소리꾼; a singer) and one gosu(고수; 鼓手; a drummer).
Being popular in Korea during the 19th century, it featured satires and love stories. A full piece of story, madang(마당), is so long that it usually takes hours to complete. A madang consists of certain alterations of aniris(아니리; descriptive speech) and changs(창; song).
In the performance, a soriggun sings, standing with a folding fan held in one hand. It emphasizes his/her motions and is used to announce changes of scenes by unfolding it. A gosu gives rhythm not only by beats but also by chooimsae(추임새)s, verbal sounds. A chooimsae can be meaningless vowel but short words of encouragement are also given. The audiences also are supposed to give chooimsaes during the performance.
The Pansori is structured episodically, like scenes in a play, so that after each episode, some of them quite virtuosic, the audience may respond with applause and the performer occasionally takes a sip of whatever liquid (tea, water or something stronger?) it was in the tea service placed to the right of the drummer.
His Pansori is, according to the program, "the East Asian equivalent of the Iliad." I sorely regret having missed that one.
Meanwhile, Yi has passed the exams with flying colors and has been appointed royal secret inspector [by the way, the Pansori is chock through with slangy expression that attempt to convey the fact (I was told by a Korean) that the tale is told in Jeolla dialect that many Koreans consider backwoods and somewhat funny].
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