“Theater is the place to speak to the invisible world.”
Namoo is a Director and Writer from South Korea, specialising in intercultural and genre-crossing works, blending her dramaturgical training in Western texts with her East Asian diaspora perspective.
With her background in physical theatre, puppetry and musical theatre in three different continents, she enjoys combining her Korean ritualistic theatre traditions with Western texts and seeking various theatrical languages to tell a story. She is driven by the themes of cultural colonialism, body politics and liminality.
Her shows have been produced in the UK, USA, Japan and Korea and her script, ‘The Man who goes Transparent’, has been published by Doyo Arts Books.
Currently, she the artistic director of KASSNA KOLLEKTIV, an East Asian Female-led interdisciplinary art collective.
GRANTS AND AWARDS
2025 Headlong’s ORIGINS 5.0 Director (UK)
2024 Short-listed/ Jette Parker Director’s Fellowship by Royal Opera House (London, UK)
2024 Short-listed/ Venice Bienale Fellowship (UK)
2024 Finalist/ New York Dramatist’s Guild National Fellowship (USA)
2017 Artist/ Catskill Artists Residency (USA)
2015 New Dramatists' Grant/ CJ Cultural Foundation (S. Korea)
2014 Best Young Director's Award/ Korean Shakespeare Awards (S. Korea)
2013 New Playwrights' Grant/ Korea Creative Contents Agency (S. Korea)
2012 Best New Musical/ Daegu International Musical Festival (S. Korea)
2012 Best Dramaturg/ Korean Shakespeare Awards (S. Korea)
EDUCATION
MFA in Theatre Directing,
Birkbeck College, University of London, UK/ 2024
*Recipient of the School of Arts Bursary
MFA in Musical Theatre Writing
Tisch School of Arts, New York University, USA /2010
BA in Journalism
Korea University, Korea /2006
Namoo is ….
15th June, 2025
directing We’re Boiling Alfred Baines(written by Mackie Reyes) at the Union Theatre(16th-18th June) as a part of Union Shorts.
will be puppeteering again back with the Bread and Puppet Theatre in Vermont later this June!