MANILA -- (UPDATED) The name Duk-Hyung Yoo, president emeritus of the Seoul Institute of the Arts (SeoulArts), may not ring a bell to most Filipinos but he’s done a lot in shaping Korean contemporary theater arts and popular culture.

Considered one of South Korea’s top art schools, SeoulArts was founded in 1962 by Yoo’s father, the late playwright and director Yoo Chi-jin. The older Yoo is regarded as the pioneer of modern theater in Korea. Over the years, the school has produced thousands of artists, musicians, literary writers, designers, filmmakers, actors and media personalities.

For example, among graduates of SeoulArts who became big names in the Hallyu Wave are Son Ye-Jin ("Crash Landing On You"), Koo Hye-sun ("Boys Over Flowers," "Angel Eyes," "Take Care of Us Captain"), 2007 Cannes International Film Festival best actress awardee Jeon Do-Yeon ("Secret Sunshine"), Park Seo-joon ("Itaewon Class," "What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim"), Seol In-ah ("Business Proposal"), Hye-jin Han ("The Book of the Three Hans," "Divorce Attorney Shin"), pop singer Kim Bum Soo, Kang Hye-jeong ("Wedding Palace," "Miss Ripley," "Running Man"), and Min-jong Kim ("Secret Door," "Along With The Gods: The Last 49 Days").

ABS-CBN News caught up with Yoo and his wife on Sunday afternoon, two days after they arrived from Seoul.

“To get in, it’s difficult. There have been cases when students took three to four years to get accepted. They keep on trying to get in. The number is like for every 350 students only one is able pass the screening process. That is the ratio for the applicants. Very difficult. Same with music, film, dance…,” Yoo said, explaining how SeoulArts screen their student applicants and the quality of graduates they produced.

Yoo said he remembered having taught Son Ye-Jin and Jeon Do-Yeon in his classes and described them as excellent students. Among the alumni of SeoulArts, the octogenarian educator and theater icon only remembered the two for the moment but he said he knew he had taught hundreds of them.

“The whole school has a foundation program and all the ideology and methodology of our school were taught to freshmen. Then we have specialized studies when they reached their senior years,” Yoo explained.

“So all these names, they all went through the foundation program in their early years of studying in SeoulArts,” he added.

Yoo served as SeoulArts president from 1971 to 1994. While studying and training in the US, he also served as member of the board of directors. He became president again in March 2007 to July 2019. He retired in 2019 and was given the title of president emeritus. His son, Tay Guhn Yoo, has since taken over as SeoulArts president.

Yoo’s foundation as educator and theater artist was honed in Dallas Theatre Centre under founding artistic director Paul Baker in the mid-1960s.

Following the completion of a Master of Arts in Theatre at Trinity University and post-graduate studies at Yale University, Yoo received funding from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations to work as a director and designer in the United States.

He became resident artist at New York’s La MaMa Experimental Theater in the 1970s, working with its founding artistic director Ellen Stewart.

His innovative approach to directing and lighting, coupled with his unprecedented contributions to amplifying Korean culture around the world have earned him numerous lifetime achievement awards including the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Award, the Journalists Federation of Korea Annual Award for True Education, Donga Daily Inchon Award, and joint ITI-NCCA Lamp of Culture and the Arts Special Award, to name a few.

Yoo has served in influential leadership roles that have connected Korea to the international stage including vice president of the Korean Center of the International Theatre Institute (ITI), general director of the Cultural Festival of 1988 Seoul Olympic Organization and executive member of the Daejon World Expo.

In 1973, Yoo was the first South Korean to ever be permitted entry into Russia during the Cold War, where he attended the general Congress of the ITI.

One of his classmates in Trinity University in the ‘60s and eventually fellow resident actor-director in La MaMa in the ‘70s is our very own theater icon, Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, the youngest Filipina to have been honored with a Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1972.

She is founder of the 56-year-old Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), TV Radio Balintataw and the UNESCO Artist for Peace-recognized group composed of Persons With Disabilities and indigenous peoples called the Earthsavers Dreams Ensemble.

“When I founded PETA, it was in the same decade when Duk’s father founded SeoulArts. I didn’t know how big he was in South Korea. Duk’s father was like our Nick Joaquin and Franz Arcellana combined,” she told ABS-CBN Ne3ws. PETA was founded on April 7, 1967. SeoulArts was established in 1962.

In 1966 at the Dallas Theatre Center, she acted in “Rashomon,” an English adaptation by Fay and Michael Kanin directed by Yoo.

When she went back following the declaration of Martial Law as political exiles in the US with her husband, the late Senator Heherson Alvarez, in La MaMa she founded the Third World Institute of Theater Studies (TWITAS) and in 1973, she acted in Jil-sa/Grass Tomb II, an experimental Korean play by Oh Tae-Suk directed by Yoo.

Like Guidote-Alvarez, at the time Yoo was also a resident theater artist in La MaMa.

They parted ways when Yoo went back to South Korea to take over from his father, who died in 1974, in running SeoulArts, sharing what he had learned in the US.

“Duk is dedicated to expressing our shared humanity through the arts. As president of SeoulArts for more than four decades, he emphasized the importance of an interdisciplinary arts education and provided an open environment where students could fully explore their creative expression,” Guidote-Alvarez said.

Yoo’s lifetime of artistic work and mentorship has nurtured artists from SeoulArts and beyond who have significantly impacted the K-wave movement.

Through his vital contribution to the international understanding of Asian arts and his visionary commitment to the use of digital and emergent technologies exploring new forms of artmaking and collaboration across distance, he has helped shape a global network of artists and communities.

In 2009, in collaboration with La MaMa Experimental Theater in New York, he founded CultureHub, a global art and technology community dedicated to advancing the work of artists experimenting with emerging technologies and fostering new artistic forms.

WATCH:

In 2022, Yoo was one of seven La MaMa’s Global Artists and Transformational Leaders in Theater awardees during the Remake A World Gala, together with Guidote-Alvarez. Yoo also serves as vice president of the ITI Social Change Network, where Guidote-Alvarez is president.

• READ: New York's La MaMa pays tribute to PETA's Cecile Alvarez

The 85-year-old Yoo has returned to the Philippines for a lecture forum at the PETA Theatre Center at 6:30 p.m. on November 15, as part of the Sustainable Development Goals Resili-Art Program under UNESCO patronage.

PETA president CB Garrucho will give the welcome remarks.

Garrucho was a student of Yoo in 1971 during the First Third-World Theater Festival along with PETA stalwarts Felix “Nonon” Padilla (founding artistic director of Tanghalang Pilipino), now US-based Lily Gamboa-O’Boyle, Lutgardo “Gardy” Labad, Katsch Catoy, the late Soxie Topacio, Frank Rivera, among others. Yoo conducted an Asian Traditional Arts Workshop in PETA that culminated in a performance of a Korean play conceived and directed by Yoo, translated into Filipino by Isagani Cruz titled "Alamang" at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

“That year, the production of 'Alamang' that Yoo directed ran away with the Most Outstanding Production for PETA Kalinangan Ensemble in the 1st TWITAS Festival Conference for the 400th Anniversary of Manila,” Guidote-Alvarez said.

There will be video excerpts from Earthsavers and Kasing Sining Performing Group from Bohol, courtesy of its artistic director, Gardy Labad. Incidentally, Kasing Sining had performances at SeoulArts.

Expected to grace the occasion are special guests from the diplomatic community, from Congress such as United Senior Citizens Party List Rep. Milagros Aquino Magsaysay and educator-members of the United Nations Association of the Philippines.

Tay Guhn Yoo will fly in from Seoul to help his father in the lecture.

There will also be representatives from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the Department of Education and National Commission of Indigenous Peoples.

The visit in Manila of Yoo and his wife is being hosted by the ITI Philippine Center through its president, former Senator Joey Lina, at the Manila Hotel.

After the ITI Earthsavers’ event with PETA in Manila, the Yoo couple will attend the Asian Theatre Festival in Iloilo and culminates their cultural tour in Bohol. Labad, a native Boholaño resident, will be their cultural tour guide.

“I think we’re going to spend Christmas and New Year here. It’s very cold in Seoul now. Winter weather has begun and it’s not good for Duk’s health,” Mrs. Yoo, a former butterfly swimmer in 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico, said.

“We’re going to stay in Bohol probably until January. We’ve heard it’s a lovely island,” said Yoo, smiling, as he and his wife look forward on a long vacation in the tropical islands in their retirement years.

“This feels like second home already.”

WATCH:

Watch more News on iWantTFC