This study examines sinmuyong, a core asset of Korean modern dance, from the perspective of contemporary intangible heritage discourse and derives practical tasks for enhancing its cultural heritage value and status. To this end, the study reviews the paradigm shift in cultural heritage concerning modern arts and and substantiates the historical transmission lineage and the tangible existence of works in sinmuyong through literature research and case analysis. The findings confirm that sinmuyong is the product of the an autonomous aesthetics that led to the modern change of tradition and that it sufficiently meets the requirements of “living heritage” through an established transmission lineage and identifiable repertoire.. This study is significant in broadening the horizon of Korean dance heritage by defining sinmuyong as an ongoing, living heritage.

ABSTRACT

This study examines how and why traditional dance in Korea is conceptualized in a way that diverges from the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) Convention of UNESCO. Using literature review and discourse analysis, it analyzes Korean cultural heritage laws and policy documents while critically engaging with theoretical shifts in folklore studies, anthropology, and performance studies that informed the ICH framework. The findings show that the Korean system conceptualizes traditional dance as a formalized performing art of professional practitioners, grounded in a product-oriented paradigm emphasizing historic value, artistry, and superiority. In contrast, the ICH Convention foregrounds a process-oriented paradigm, understanding heritage as community-based practice, transmission, and performance. This divergence produces a structural gap between form-centered and process-centered perspectives of the same dance practices. This study conceptualizes this difference as a tension between “preservation-oriented” and “process-oriented” paradigms, and proposes the necessity of reformulating the dual ontology of the intangibility and tangibility of dance cultural heritage.

This study aims to examine the aesthetic characteristics of body imagery in contemporary ballet through an analysis of Alexander Ekman’s “Play,” focusing on Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the Body without Organs (BwO). Through a literature review of Deleuze’s concept of the body and theory of art, five characteristics of body imagery were derived: disarticulation, expansion, decentering, body transformation, and body abstraction. These categories were grounded in Deleuze’s concepts of articulation, becoming, multiplicity, affect, and the virtual. Applying this analytical framework, the study found that, while grounded in traditional ballet technique, “Play” embodies these characteristics through the segmentation and reconstruction of the body, the displacement of the bodily center, and the body’s integration with space and objects. This study is significant in offering a theoretical basis for discussing the identity of contemporary ballet by interpreting body image in Ekman's Play from Deleuze's philosophical perspective.

This study aims to provide a multidimentional reconstruction of the transmission landscape of city- and provincial-designated intangible heritage dance arts of the Seoul metropolitan and central regions, and to explore a sustainable transmission paradigm. To this end, a comprehensive survey of intangible heritage designations within the region was conducted, and a comparative analysis of the aesthetic characteristics of salpuri chum and seungmu was performed according to their respective lineages. The analysis revealed a severe geographical imbalance; dance genres are heavily concentrated in western plain areas such as Seoul and Gyeonggi, whereas eastern mountainous areas like Gangwon and Jungbuk show uneven transmission due to the absorption of dance elements into composite ritual genres. Nevertheless, even within the same genre, distinctive artistic identities have differentiated into classical beauty, ritual character, and aesthetic flexibility depending on master-disciple lineages and regional sensibilities. Accordingly, this study proposes practical alternatives combining multidimensional archiving of fragmented local dance assets with a communication strategy that employs media technology as a limited supplement. This study is significant in demonstrating that regional intangible heritage constitutes an independent value system that sustains the diversity of Korean dance, and in establishing the necessity of a diversified transmission paradigm.

This study aims to identify the cognitive emotional mechanisms underlying why AI-based performance reproduction does not fully feel “authentic” to audiences, and to analyze the structure of audience authenticity perception. An AI-based performance reproduction video featuring Audrey Hepburn was used as a stimulus. The study does not seek to evaluate the authenticity of a specific traditional dance form, but focuses on how perceived visual artificiality influences authenticity loss and emotional distance. The research model draws on uncanny valley theory, perceptual realism, authenticity theory, and Walter Benjamin’s concept of aura. PLS-SEM analysis of 1,124 respondents revealed that unnatural gaze and facial expressions, violations of physical laws and detail errors, and excessively smooth skin representation all had significant effects on authenticity loss and emotional distance. Authenticity loss significantly affected emotional distance and partially mediated the relationship between visual artificiality and emotional distance. The findings suggest that audience experience in digital performing arts may be shaped more strongly by the perceived naturalness and authenticity of performance than by the level of visual reproduction itself.

This study focuses on the increasing use of street dance programs in local festivals and aims to identify the background of their growth, utilization effects, and future directions based on the experiences and perceptions of street dance professionals. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with eleven experts involved in festival planning, judging, and performance, and the data were analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding. The findings indicate that the growth of street dance in local festivals was driven by increased media exposure and the development of community-based professional networks. These factors contributed to regional revitalization, audience expansion, broadening the cultural base of street dance, and the formation of compensation structures. However, structural limitations were also identified, including poor performance environments and gaps between festival operation systems and genre-specific expertise, which hinder sustainability. This study demonstrates that street dance functions not merely as performance content but as a participatory cultural resource within local festivals. Furthermore, it highlights the need for stable financial support, collaborative systems with specialized personnel, and long-term operational strategies.

This study aims to investigate how Jinsoe Chum, rooted in Gyeonggi Dodanggut, has been adopted and transformed as a stage art, and to elucidate its aesthetic value. It further seeks to demonstrate the potential for Fexpanding the artistic appearance of Jinsoe Chum, and to explore a sustainable transmission methodology for traditional dance in a rapidly changing contemporary arts environment. To this end, this study traces the transmission processes of Lee Dongahn and Jo Heungdong lineages through literature review and performance analysis, and closely examines the staging of Jinsoe Chum in the Korean National Dance Company’s Hyangyeon. The finding confirms that Jinsoe Chum has been re-established as a ‘creative tradition’ that combines withmodern theatrical conventions while maintaining its shamanic sacrality. This shows the process by which Korean traditional dance achieves an ‘aesthetic modernity’ attuned to contemporary sensibilities, and suggests a value orientation that extends the boundary beyond the fixed archetype.

This study examines data governance issues arising from the expanding use of data and artificial intelligence (AI) in the performing arts through a stage-based data pipeline framework. The pipeline consists of six stages: collection, cleaning and processing, storage and management, AI training, generation and utilization, and reuse and sharing. Using seven domestic and international cases, the study applies pattern-matching analysis to identify dominant governance factors at each stage, focusing on six dimensions: legitimacy, quality, control, transparency, accountability, and usability. The findings show that governance issues emerge structurally along the data pipeline rather than from specific technologies. Legitimacy was dominant in AI-based creative systems, quality in real-time performance environments, control in digital archives, and usability in platform-based sharing systems. The study highlights the need to establish stage-specific governance frameworks suited to AI-driven performing arts environments.

Dance as an art form is fundamentally inseparable from the place in which it is performed. Therefore, this study aims to explore the generation of artistic meaning through the correlation between dance and space where it is realized. Two works serve as case studies: Miniature Space Theater, which reconfigured traditional theater space to experiment with audience performativity, and Trailer, an urban site-specific performance; both are pertinent cases for examining innovation in dance space and meaning production. Employing semiotic analysis based on binary oppositions, actantial models, and significance processes, the study conducts an in-depth examination of how each work utilizes place and generates meaning. The analysis derives three dimensions of meaning from dance performed in diverse places: non-representational meaning, bodily meaning, and event meaning. It is hoped that the generative artistic meanings identified through this research will contribute to fundamental self-reflection and redefinition in the art of dance.

This study examines shifts in dance reception within the omnichannel environment from the perspective of ‘extended corporeality.’ Employing William Forsythe’s ‘choreographic object,’ Andre Lepecki’s ‘body as archive,’ and Kate Mattingly’s ‘choreographic apparatus’ as analytical frameworks, the study analyzes cases including Ambiguous Dance Company that traverse online and offline boundaries. The findings reveal that the omnichannel environment reconstructs dance through mechanisms of ‘translation’ and ‘control.’ First, as dance detaches from the physical body and is converted into data, it generates ‘mediated performativity’ and ‘performative archives.’ Second, under algorithmic control, audiences transition into active ‘performative spectators’ (corporeal prosumers) who embody and produce dance themselves. To address the risks of technological subjugation and the standardization of bodily aesthetics, this study proposes practical measures: establishing test-beds for empirical projects, introducing ‘modular choreography’, and building participatory dance-sharing platforms. This study is significant in elucidating the ontological transformation of dance and presenting a roadmap for a sustainable dance ecosystem.