Korean mask dance dramas come in several regional variants, one of which is the sandae noli variant. According to some scholars sandae noli may be the root form of many other Korean mask dance dramas today, as it was created and managed by the Sandae Dogam, a government office in charge of providing entertainment both in the capital and in important regional centers. This Sandae Dogam was disbanded in the early 1600s, leaving many performers unemployed and searching for work. It is thought that the stories of these performers became modern day plays such as Songpa Sandae Noli

Songpa Sandae Noli

Songpa Sandae Noli is a type of sandae noli, Korean traditional mask play which has been handed down in the neighborhoods of Songpa-dong and Garak-dong in modern-day Seoul, South Korea...

 and Yangju Byeolsandae and influenced many other performance forms in Korea. Although modern Koreans tend to use the Korean term talchum

Talchum

Talchum could be characterized as a Korean dance performed while wearing a mask, miming, speaking and even sometimes singing. Although most Koreans believe that talchum refers to all mask dance dramas, it is in fact a regional term only properly applied to dances of Hwanghae Province in present day...

 to refer to all types of mask dance drama, talchum

Talchum

Talchum could be characterized as a Korean dance performed while wearing a mask, miming, speaking and even sometimes singing. Although most Koreans believe that talchum refers to all mask dance dramas, it is in fact a regional term only properly applied to dances of Hwanghae Province in present day...

 is properly only applied to three extant mask dance dramas from Hwanghae Province in North Korea

North Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

.