Byung-Choen Park’s Jindo Drum Dance is a masterpiece that strikes a balance between traditional Korean music and dance. As one of the most representative traditional dances, this dance has been loved and performed by many people for a long time. This study focuses on discovering the unique qualities of Byung-Choen Park’s Jindo Drum Dance by examining its movements through Laban Movement Analysis. Along with this analysis, this study also explores the special concepts and philosophical meanings embodied in the movements of the dance. As a Certified Laban Movement Analyst, the author analyzed the movements based on the dance film shown at Jin-do on November 7, 2008. The movement qualities of the Jindo Drum Dance are as follows. First, the dance employs both regular beats and irregular up-beats that cause disorder within order. Second, the limited torso movement while holding a drum enhances simultaneous and, consequently, harmonized arm and leg movements. Third, diverse arm and leg gestures draw curved and straight spatial designs by using peripheral and transverse spatial pathways. Fourth, in most performances, the dancer faces the front and right and left forward side directions based on the proscenium stage. Also, the diverse spatial directions of all body parts within a personal kinesphere create three-dimensional volumes with mixed diagonal lines within a cube. Fifth, the inner impulse of the movements demonstrates an Effort phrase, such as Action Drive, then Bound and Free Flow and Passion Drive, versus Remote or Mobile State. These Effort phrases reveal a unique Korean dance aesthetic, which consists of a harmonizing of Jeong Jung Dong-stability and mobility, as well as calm and active. Sixth, these five special qualities rely on a structure that includes principles of repetition. Repetitive movement qualities help audiences appreciate and evoke the unique Korean sentiment, Shin-myung. All of these movement qualities are well orchestrated in between two opposing poles, such as harmony and chaos, regular and irregular, soft and stiff, strong and weak, curved and straight, and feminine and masculine, which eventually imply the special Korean cultural concept of Jeong Jung Dong and Dong Jung Jeong, which is based on Yin-Yang philosophy.

This study traced Choi Seung-hee’s dancing career in Europe and the Americas between 1937 and 1940. Choi is recognized as a pioneer who built the foundation of modern Korean dance. Called “the dancer of the peninsular” and very popular in Korea and Japan, the celebrated dancer extended her career to Europe with the ambitious mission to introduce Joseon dance to an international audience in the late 1930s. As the Japanese novelist Yasunari Kawabata put it, her dance was powerful and based on her ethnic roots, which became representative of her as a dancer. Meanwhile, most Korean intellectuals criticized her dance for failing to fully express their nation’s identity; this was because it was a mix of Western-style and traditional Korean techniques. Despite this criticism, her dance proved itself to be fascinating enough to attract an international audience, presenting the uniqueness of an ethnic culture in a dignified and fresh way. It also suggested that the legendary dancer’s work carries significance in that it created a new value system with a blend of globalization, locality, and democratic elements.

When I first looked through the records of Korean immigrants on the foreigner register in Mexico in 1989, a photo attracted my attention of a flapper-haired, smiling, beautiful woman who stood out among the others. She was Sai Shoki, a famed dancer who performed in Mexico City in October, 1940. When I met Judy Van Zile, professor of University of Hawaii in Puerto España in the summer of 2000, the professor told me that her study on Korean dance was nearly completed. Her study looked into the performance tour in America by Choi Seung-hee(Shoki’s Korean name)and included articles on her Bogota performance. That led me to the presentation of this study in which I was to give details about Shoki’s dance career, records on her Mexico performance, and her political position on her nation’s independence movement, which drove her to move to North Korea and continue her career there. The appendix contains related photos.

Rooted in British sociologist Anthony Giddens’s description of modernity as a historical and cultural space that is “in various key respects discontinuous with the gamut of pre-modern cultures and ways of life”, this study seeks to contextualize Ch’oe Sŭng-hŭi’s life and legacy in relation to evolving ideas of modernity. Here I continue my concern with Ch’oe’s actual dancing. I first lay a foundation for moving forward by summarizing related previous findings. I then look at Ch’oe’s emerging aesthetic philosophy and artistic development in relation to modernity as it was becoming defined in dance in Japan, Korea, and elsewhere. I conclude that it was the diverse philosophies underlying the kids of dance with which Ch’oe became engaged that in effect gave her permission to develop artistically in the way she did, and that allowed for her changing embodiment of Korean modernity during the 1920s and 1930s.

This study is an analysis of dance critics' way of writing to make the general public appropriate images. Thus, this study aims to identify the images in writings inferred by readers; this study investigates the factors of aesthetic works by critics who compose images in their writings. In this study, the inference process of images for the interpretation and analysis of works was described by investigating the factors appearing in dance critics' writings on their impression of the works. By describing a critic's way of writing, which is shown in the critique on the Korean National Contemporary Dance Company's , the components and meaning of image inference in the work were examined. The study found that the trends in the form of the aesthetic work from critics' appreciation could be summarized as generalization and the universalization. It could be seen that the generalization acted as the basis of a basic judgement for the quality of the work, which appeared through understanding the subject and themes of the work. The universalization presented image refinement of inference for the analysis with technical requirements for aesthetic characteristics, form, social and philosophical structure, thoughts and ideas, and artistry. The critics writing on works has an open attitude to possess a convergent direction of interpretation as a progressive form against the abstractness appearing in the art of human society. However, it could be seen that the functional descriptions of artworks were presented to readers as as an association process of image inference in a censored form (which is generalization and universalization) in order to identify human society as cultural, social, and historical forms.

The idea of Korean dance that humanity and art should conform to the nature of heaven and earth is in common with Confucius' Confucian thought of Confucius. And it is connected with the aesthetic reason of harmony of right personality and healthy body. This study analyzed the aesthetics of Korean dance through the unity of heaven and human and I Keji Fuli between the as aesthetic feature of Confucian textuality. First, Munmyoilmu has a human the aesthetics nature and aesthetic character with a human the centered feature that makes up the virtue and personality of individuals and further builds a beautiful human society together with oneself and others. Second, the Kang Seon‐yeong style Taepyeongmu Dance endeavors to make a world in which a pervasive behavior affects the social community and all people can live in a society where order is fulfilled. It is a form of harmony and order of the heaven and earth, mediating the sky and the earth. Third, Dongraehakchum Dance with an idle creature of the gentry’s dancing, expresses the moral nobility of Confucianism that the crane possesses. The aesthetic consciousness of the viewer can be seen through the dance of the moral sublime of the coexistence of heaven and earth.

The purpose of this study is to suggest a way to reconcile two conflicting concepts: the system of intangible cultural assets and creative succession of traditional dances. Among the terms for intangible cultural assets in Korea, ‘prototype’ was changed into ‘typifier’ because of the legal revision in 2016. In addition, the term, ‘human cultural assets’, which has been actually used was enacted. Typifier is an advanced concept which makes a bridge between intangible cultural assets and artistic notion, while human cultural assets are also a concept that acknowledges an indissolubility between dance and human being. In order to encourage creative succession, while maintaining and preserving the artistic view on intangible cultural assets, this study proposes the following suggestions. First, we should actively find and appreciate holders of human cultural asset in their 40s-50s. It would help activating the dances and forming an independent job field. Second, we should acknowledge more than two people as human cultural assets for an item, accepting various and creative successions. It leads to restraints power monopoly and to promote competition among them. Last, succession fees should be unified by the Cultural Heritage Administration for securing transparency and fairness of accounts. These would contribute to creative successions of Korean traditional dances in the system of intangible cultural assets.

In this study, I examined how the succession and modernization of tradition has been emphasized through the articles related to dance in North Korea’s comprehensive art magazine Joseon Art focusing on its traditionality and modernity. The research method was centered on literature analysis and image analysis. In the literature, from the first issue of 1956 to the first of June 2000, 344 out of 468 articles were reviewed and analyzed. The analysis revealed that the majority of articles has focused on the discussion on the issue of inheriting and developing the people's dance heritage among the anti - revolutionary dance heritage and ethnic classical dance heritage. Based on socialist realism as a principle in succession and development, discourses in the articles have emphasized revolution in contents and have tried to create dance based on national characteristics in terms of form. I can see that the articles have strived to present the dance as a means of educating people’s ideology. The contents discussed in the Joseon Art from the 1950s to the 1970s were found to be further developed in the later period. North Korea has developed dance that promote the superiority of the Korean people based on Juche ideology. It was found that the principles related to dance decided before the 1980’s have continued in the “invariant law”.

The purpose of this article is to explain the characteristics of mind-heart and acknowledgement, emphasized in the practice of traditional korea dance, based on the theory of Wang Yangmyung's psychology. We examine the mind-heart, acknowledgement, and the art theory in 󰡔JJeonseubrok(the tradition records)󰡕along with the words emphasized by the masters of the traditional dance, and express them with a language that can be publicized. According to Wang Yangmyung's theory of psychology, we can say that what good mind stands for in "Good dance comes from good mind" is the state where the rightness is embodied in mind and that 'good dance' means the state where 'non-embodiment' of movement and 'non-embodiment' of emotion is realized. In particular, we must always pursue 'sincerity' in the domain of mind-heart, which we know alone. Through these languages, the internal and external value and meaning of Korean traditional dance can be revealed. There is a saying that "effective practice precedes theories of it." Effective practice of traditional dance has existed for a long time. However, the theory of its practice is not sufficient. This article attempts to theoretically explain the effective practice that has always been with us since a long time ago. This article has its significance in that it tries for the first time to theoretically explain the thesis of traditional dance, "Good dance comes from good mind" by using the mind-heart and the acknowledgement of dancer which was emphasized by traditional dancing masters. In particular, it is meaningful that it approached the theory of mind and acknowledgement theory of traditional dance based on the study of Wang Yangmyung.

Purpose of this study is to determine idealistic boundary of aesthetics ultimately pursued by investigation of aesthetic contemplative norm defined by traditional philosophical thought inherent in the Korean Dance. The aesthetic consciousness and mental boundary formed from aesthetic contemplative norm of the Korean Dance has created the beauty of harmony, personality, and nature. This includes the 'life characteristics' precious as a human being, 'individuality' to respect an individual, and 'wholeness' that seeks harmony of an individual and the whole. The idealistic boundary of aesthetics inside the beauty with such characteristics can be summarized as follows; First, 'Spirit-energy (Ijeonghapiljeok) boundary of aesthetics' means harmonious relationships between reason and emotion. Namely, it aims harmony and unification between rational boundary and emotional boundary with artistic spirit to follow profound harmony of nature and to pursue new things. Second, 'Life-oriented boundary of aesthetics' includes lively appearance of substantive nature in a mind. It reveals that the appearance of nature itself is the origin of beauty and that 'life characteristics' that being alive itself is beautiful are true beauty. Third, 'Transcendent boundary of aesthetics' contains spirit of the heaven. United aesthetics boundary is to realize the order of nature and to pursue harmony of the boundary between nature Taoism and dance spirit. Surreal time and space world in freewheeling state without any confinement in dance is the best idealistic aesthetics boundary crossing over boundary between human and the god, boundary between reality and unreality, and boundary between labor and play through freedom of deviation. As discussed above, 'Korean Dance's aesthetic contemplative norm and aesthetics boundary' contributes a clue to aesthetically determine the original form of Korean Dance theory and the development. Aesthetic consciousness and aesthetic dignity of a work, and 'idealistic aesthetics boundary' will identify aesthetic categories to determine aesthetic characteristics inherent in the Korean Dance.