This study begins with the question of what dances were performed in the Sa-ak during the Joseon Dynasty. The Sa-ak (賜樂) consisted of a director, musicians, female entertainers, boy dancers, and a Cheoyong masked dance group. The research objective is Jeongsanggonhoenangilok, which was written to celebrate Hoebang (回榜)’s 60th anniversary of passing the state examination by Jeong Won-yong(1783- 1873). The Joseon wangjo sillok (朝鮮王朝實錄) and Akhakgwebeom (樂學軌範) were also sources of background material, consisting of official records and literary works, that were subject to review. In terms of the rites of the Hoebang, on January 1, 1862, the king gave orders. In addition to feasting by the royal family, the government allowed citizens to also participate in festivals, many of which were held over the course of two months. Relative to the Sa-ak, the king established the first degree of Sa-ak, which consisted of a total of 52 people: 1 director, 36 musicians, 10 boy dancers, and 5 Cheoyong masked dancers. They performed for two months. In terms of the performances, the repertoires of the boy dancers were not recorded and remain unknown. While it was performed leisurely, it gave a feeling of flourishing and colorful. The female entertainers performed seven kinds of dances along with the Jangagwon orchestra: Cheoyong masked dance, sword dance, drum dance, pogulak (dancing ball into hole), seonyulak (dancing to play on the ship), and hyangbal heonseondo (dancing to give a long life peach). These repertoires were the most popular forms of jeongjae (呈才) in the late Joseon court. The Sa-ak was performed as part of a private feast. “Sa-ak” is an important keyword for understanding the culture of Korean dancing, because it spreads as “Sa-ak” in private space, and has the character of cultural circulation in which the enjoyment of royal court dance extends to individuals.

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.

Since the 1990s, Korea has developed into a full-fledged multicultural society with an increase of foreign workers, marriage immigrants, and defectors. Today, as multicultural education is emerging as a critical task for Korea in the 21st century, it is a crucial moment to examine what role Korea’s dance education plays in such a multicultural society. The purpose of this study is to search for an appropriate type of dance education, given Korea’s transition to a multicultural society. Thus, this study conducted comparative studies between the United States’ form of multicultural education and France’s intercultural education to identify the current status and problems of dance education in Korea. Based on this analysis, four ways in which intercultural education has been applied as an alternative to appropriate dance education in Korean multicultural society are presented. This study attempts to identify the similarities rather than the differences in intercultural dance education. Furthermore, children coming from immigrant families and students from ordinary households want to communicate with each other through various traditional dances. Therefore, intercultural dance education needs to be extended to immigrants as well as native citizens. Additionally, a community dance program that implements intercultural education for a large number of inhabitants and a small number of immigrants should be established. If dance education that emphasizes communication and mutual integration is formulated to meet the needs of the present age, it is expected that it will also be a great help toward creating a safe and healthy multicultural society. Through this study, the importance and value of dance in Korean multicultural society will be re-acknowledged, and the value of dance education for leading the way toward a 21st century multicultural society will be illustrated.

This study seeks to interpret how femininity is revealed in Seung-hee Choi’s dancing body and how it was expressed in daily life at a time when patriarchy and the concept of the “new woman” collided. In early modern dance and in later works of Korean traditional material and Oriental images, we see aspects of bold, dignified women. These reveal a feminism that conforms to established male ideals and challenges classical femininity. In contrast, Seung-hee Choi practiced a progressive to her life and to marriage. The romantic relationship she shared with her husband was not like those of radical feminists. Instead, the couple forged a modern marriage that linked them as a mental partner and a mentor of life. The tendency of her work was also affected by her husband, so she created dance of proletarian tendency and then developed Korean dance. Seung-hee Choi succeeded at both her career and marriage. Seung-hee Choi was also a celebrity in her time for emphasizing femininity through her fashion. She retained her bob style hair and wore Western clothes indoors and out. The hats, coats, dresses, clutches, and shoes that she wore were carefully chosen to coordinate with the Art Déco style then in vogue in Paris and the U.S. This form of fashion reveals a graceful, sophisticated, and self-assured femininity.

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.

The emergence of “new dance” is considered an important event in history of Joseon folk dance, from the ancient times driven by slavery through modern times. Choi Seung-hee was a pioneer of “new dance” and leader in “new dance” in Asia. In addition, she was a great contributor to change and development of Joseon folk dance and had great impact on development of oriental dance as well. In this paper, I studied Choi’s identity and her body, her performance, logics of her performance, and her performance notion, and her revelation which drove her to be dedicated to folk dance. This study analyzed Choi’s dance in three categories of identity, language, and revelation. In the category of identity, three subjects of janggyeong (場景) and identification, Choi’s identity, and her body were discussed. janggyeong (場景) is a concept I used to study dancing phenomena in different scenes. The word is a combination of jang (場), meaning space and gyeong (景), meaning sight. Therefore, the word refers to sight of a person doing something in a space, which naturally comprises elements of person, work, time, and space. When space, a person, and work exist at the same time, space is confined to work and a person’s identity is defined as work he is doing, and work is a determinant of the person’s identity. Choi Seung-hee was engaged in dance and related work in her whole life. This gave her multiple identities aside from a dancer. In the beginning, for example, she was a dancing learner and a person expressing things through dance, and when starting to create work, she was a creator of art work and finally she was a dancing educator, researcher, and manager. She obtained some of them simultaneously while others one by one over a long period of time. From the viewpoint of cultural and institutional norms, her identities represented a unity of Western and Eastern cultures, a unity of Western and Eastern dance, and a unity of traditional and modern dance. Despite this, her movement, as a dancer, stood for Joseon folks and modernity. In the language category, three subjects such as performance, performance logics and performance notions were discussed as a dancing language. For dancers, language means performance and Choi’s performance mainly concerned creating work of Joseon folk dance and developing teaching materials. Language is the logic of social activity and for dancers, it becomes the grammar of dance performance. The grammar served as the underlying basis of Choi’s work creation and developing teaching materials and the means of language turned into teaching materials for Joseon folks. The way the language was used became how Joseon folk dance was formed. Based on this, I concluded that Choi Seung-hee’s performance of Joseon folk dance and her teaching materials can be defined as use of a Western system by Joseon folk. Language is a concept and idea associated with social activity. Choi’s dance encompassed ideas of nation, people, creating new things and openness. The category of revelation detailed the great dancer’s revelation to development of Joseon folk dance, which concerned respect for fellow people, self-awakening, no fear of creating new things, and open-mindedness.

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.

Han Sung Jun has been recognized as an extraordinary figure who collected traditional Korean dances and laid a foundation for systematic transmission during the late Chosun Dynasty and Japanese colonial period. Due to his significance, there have been ample researches in the past. However, there seemed to be some rooms for re-examination within the cultural contexts. The purpose of this study was to re-examine Han Sung Jun’s dance works, more specifically his social awareness as well as his dance perspective. Archives of his direct interviews were utilized for this task. Han Sung Jun, as an artist who experienced both feudal and colonial times, considered his life as a ‘shame.’ Based on this notion, he maintained his cultural identity during the abrupt changing times from the West dignity and accepted his fateful mission on traditional dance. Han Sung Jun focused on the principles of dance with open mindedness and holistic thoughts. Han Sung Jun’s three major dance works, ‘Seung Mu’, ‘Tae Pyung Mu’, and ‘Salpuri Chum’, were analyzed for better understanding using historical sources and Han Sung Jun’s thought. ‘Seung Mu’ was not just a form of religious dance but the crux of traditional dance cementing several cultures and ideologies. ‘Tae Pyung Mu’ could be viewed not only a dance for peaceful time and strong reign, but a dance for just society where all people were treated equal and lived an harmonious community. Lastly, ‘Salpuri Chum’ had the most liberal form and reflected the dancer’s emotion and could be regarded as the dance form with open possibilities.

This study aims to examine the contemporaneity of performance archive and reconsider the historicality of dance, focusing on practice and theory in contemporary dance. For this, I explored theories and discourses that arose in contemporary arts, and I have analyzed the cases of archive practice. Over past two decades, choreographers in contemporary dance have experimented contemporaneity and history through archive practice. This study focuses on historical concepts of archive in order to find the meaning of the choreographer’s re-enactment. In this study, I refer to Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault’s proposal on history and archive to construct the theoretical frame of this study. “Actuality” in Walter Benjamin’s philosophy is heterogeneous time modes of the past and the present in singular moments, and it presents reality. Foucault suggests archive as a system of transformation and severance. He exceeds common perception of linear history with an archeological approach. To examine how choreographers apply archive to their work in a level of choreography and body as medium of dance, I have chosen the works of two choreographer: Yvonne Rainer and Boris Charmatz. Rainer uses the methods of “repetition” and “representation”, which transmit from one body to others in her . She suggests performative archiving to produce new creations in the process of returning to the original. Charmatz writes new history, which is established between dance history and a dancer’s memories in the present time. They both emphasized that a body is the subject of both dance and real life because every segment of history inhabits the body. Therefore, there are no distinctions between archive and body in dance. In this study, I discuss performance archive being toward embodied actualization with the choreographic approach. Performance archive is not only a form or style of dance but also questions, engagement, relationships, and enactment of the objectivity and subjectivity of dance. In this light, the choreographic is the way to create both dance and history.