The purpose of this study is to examine Western works of art through a historical and archival point of view related to arts psychotherapy. The method of approaching visual works of art is based on essential attributes of art therapy history. The theoretical background is founded in publications and research papers relating to art history, arts philosophy, and expressive arts therapy. To examine contemporary Western works of art and artists, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Henri Matisse were selected for analysis and exploration of the origin of arts psychotherapy. For the purpose of discussing the conceptual foundation of dance therapy, the characteristics of Western works of art and artists were examined, resulting in the following findings. First, the characteristics of Pablo Picasso’s “Three Dancers” include free-form expression, destruction of form, and bodily expression of subjective emotions arising from an inner world. In particular, “Three Dancers” exhibits Symbolism, which is one of the main elements of dance/movement therapy. Second, the characteristics of Jackson Pollock’s “Mural” and “Rhythmical Dance” represent Shamanism and strong Body Action, both from the artifacts and the process of creating them. Lastly, Henri Matisse’s “Dance the Second” and “Two Dancers” show a simple and strong color composition which emphasizes the harmony of nature, humans, and the power of Rhythmic group activity, also a main concept of dance therapy. As a result of the analysis, these three important Western artists and works of art are seen to demonstrate meaningful perspectives and theoretical foundations of dance therapy. Indeed, their works of art could be considered valuable documents of dance therapy history. This study is limited by its focus on only a few selected artists and works of art. A larger, follow-up study is needed to rule out over-generalization. Second, interpretation may be limited by the subjectivity of the author. For this reason, the author included a number of references to support the study’s point of view.

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.

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 purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of empathy ability on dance emotion and dance expression of college students. The subjects of this study were 169 college students who majored in modern dance at each four universities in Seoul, Busan, Gyeonggi, and Jeolla provinces. The survey tool used a empathy ability, dance emotion and dance expression questionnaire, and collected data were analyzed by frequency analysis, correlation analysis, t-test, ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis using SPSS 21.0 program. As a result, first, students of modern dance majors had high physical expression ability in boys and 9~11 years in dance participation period, and high cognitive ability in 4th graders. Second, the empathy ability of college students of modern dance major had a significant influence on fun, vitality, pride and achievement. Third, empathy ability of college students of modern dance major had a significant influence on dance expression ability. Fourth, the fun and vitality of dance emotions of college students had a significant influence on the performance of dance expression. The results of this study are expected to provide basic data for teaching dance expression in the curriculum of modern dance majors.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of discourse act that was unfolded in the process of modern Korean dance securing its significance as performing arts. In Korea, the first-half of the twentieth century witnessed the formation of new culture based on a clash between modern Western civilization that was accepted and the autogenous modern consciousness. The appearance of newspapers, in particular, provided ample opportunities for the reading public to participate in the society and gave birth to the modern consciousness of sharing one's ideas with others. This happened in the field of dance from various perspectives including reviews in the criticism format after the appreciation of dance performances, critiques, dance theories, and new ideas of the traditional dance. There was no establishment of proper dance criticism in Korea during the modern period, however there were meaningful acts to create dance discourses from diverse perspectives and enhance the aesthetic modernity of the public.