K-POP PERSONAS: A Dramaturgical Approach to BTS's Hybrid Storytelling and Stagecraft.

This article analyzes the dramaturgical approach and the hybrid staging of the K-Pop group BTS, focusing on their live performances between 2016 and 2019, notably during the Wings era. It highlights how BTS integrates implicit narration, intertextuality, and theatricality into their concerts, blending music, dance, visual arts, and pre-recorded media (VCR) to create a total stage experience comparable to Wagner’s concept of Gesamtkunstwerk. The study also emphasizes the importance of the body and costume as dramaturgical tools, as well as the active interaction with the audience, notably through fan chants and fancams. Finally, it discusses BTS’s editorial shift toward a more mainstream American market after 2019, marked by a simplified narrative but maintaining strong theatricality in their international performances. [Extracted from the article]