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.

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.

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.

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.

Hallyangmu is one of folk dances, in which the original form and archetype of Korean dance have been well inherited and recorded. Since its original forms were recorded in Gyobang Gayo (1865) written by Jeong Hyeon-seok, Hallyangmu has been inherited in various forms. It was passed down by gisaeng in the enlightenment era and performed as theater dance by Han Seong-jun. Notably, it is a dance drama in which narrative structure has been well recorded. Hallyangmu, has been inherited mainly in Gyeonggi region and Yeongnam region. Hallyangmu danced by Gang Seon-yeong and Jang Hong-sim, who followed Han Seong-jun’s style, was designated as a cultural asset of Seoul City in 2014 and has been most standardized in terms of character composition and narrative structure. Hallyangmu in Han Seong-jun’s style largely consists of four sequences: story of a playboy and a maiden;of a Buddhist monk and a maiden;of a playboy and a female barkeeper; and the final sequence for resolution They make.a story with the combination of minimized unit structure and seek an open space in which the story can be expressed in movements. The characters in the dance are a playboy, a maiden, a Buddhist monk (dark faced Buddhist monk) and a female barkeeper. When the playboy is seen as a subject, the maiden as an object, and the monk as an opponent, the dance is expressed in the triangle contrast structure in which two male characters have conflicts to win love. However, the structure centers on the maiden without direct conflicts between the Buddhist monk and the playboy, and personalities and characters come to the surface through concepts of behaviors.

Hallyangmu is one of folk dances which shows social phenomena and discourses in the tradition process well. In the early days of development, it was a type of folk play that satirizes the society in each region, but as the age changed, it developed into a theater dance. Today, it is performed on stage as a masterpiece of male dancing by adding masculine fashion, excitement and acting. The important point in this systematic flow is that it has been refined as it enters the performing arts and has been handed down with its content and structure. This study focuses on the structuring of works that appear in it's stage-making process. Especially, The style of Kang Sun-young of Han Seong-jun's Hallyangmu which performed for the first time as a theater dance, conducts research focusing on the systematic aspects and performance aesthetics of Hallyangmu. It distinguished from Madang Noli and Gisaeng dance. The characters are four and the narrative structure is simplified, so there is not much movement, but the story progresses in a calm and calm manner while concentrating on the drama. The contents also show indirectly the space elements of the stage form by the character of the comic, humorous, satirical, and the phonetic movements focusing on the relationship among the characters.

Based on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the field of cultural production, this paper focuses on historicity in the field of ballet in Korean Society. Using quantitative content analysis of major daily newspapers, this paper intends to examine the composition of artists' occupational groups and professional ballet careers, as a measure of autonomy in the field of ballet in Korean society. This study found that 1) since the 1980s, choreographers of ballet have attracted more attention than artists in other genres, and 2) while educational capitals is still a strong element, the autonomous hierarchy of a professional ballet career is emerging in the field of ballet in Korean society. In conclusion, it may be said that the field of ballet Korean society has strengthened in autonomy.